


Hunting the Dark

by clearascountryair



Series: Hunting the Dark [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Death of a Child, Childhood Trauma, Demonic Possession, Demons, F/M, Found Family, Jemma Simmons is THIRSTY, Mild Gore, Mild Smut, Minor Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie/Yo Yo Rodriguez, Minor Phil Coulson/Melinda May, Minor Skye | Daisy Johnson/Antoine Triplett, Penny Dreadful inspired, Trauma, and Fitz is a tall glass of water, not a Grant Ward redemption story, that's gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24962533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearascountryair/pseuds/clearascountryair
Summary: London, 1892Falling in love isn’t easy.  Falling in love when you’re a high society darling is even harder.  But falling in love when you’re a high society darling actively battling the demons of your childhood (figuratively AND literally)?  Well, even Jemma Simmons can’t make that look easy.The college/secret relationship/papa Coulson/mama May/found family/demon-hunting/Victorian AU that no one asked for
Relationships: Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons, Phil Coulson & Melinda May
Series: Hunting the Dark [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/954381
Comments: 59
Kudos: 73





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [agentcalliope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentcalliope/gifts).



> I started this fic on June 6, 2017.  
> 2017.  
> What a wild ride. Thank you so much, Casey, for responding to every "what should I write" text for three years with "PENNY DREADFUL AU." I would have never finished this without you. Love you to pieces.
> 
> Please read the tags. I didn't put any of the archive warnings because it's really toned down, but it is a demon-hunting fic, so if you don't like any level of violence or demonic possession, including possession of a child, please don't read it.
> 
>  **Edit:** This fic is complete and I'll update it every Sunday

_28 October 1892_  
_Cambridge, England_

A private compartment on the third carriage on the late train from Cambridge to Ipswich is normally not a sight that draws much attention, whether or not it should. On this particular night that was most unfortunate. Had the three children (twenty years old is as much a child as you make it) attracted more attention, they might have been stopped and lives might have been saved. Not as many lives as could ultimately be saved by them not attracting any attention at all, but different, more tangible lives. As it were, the conductor came through to collect their tickets, looked at the three boys, one white and angry and Scottish (the last two of which, to be frank, are one and the same), the second laughing and Black, and the third almost certainly a girl in boy’s clothing, and promptly chose to ignore them. The girl was likely in trouble already. When the conductor left, shutting the door behind him, the angry boy continued to glare at the no-longer-laughing-out-loud one.

“Stop laughing.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yes, you are. With your eyes.”

“That’s racialistic.”

“No, it’s not. You look like you want to laugh at me.”

“I do want to laugh at you”

“Oh, fuck off, Trip.”

“ _Boys_!” Jemma finally groaned, hissing just loud enough to be heard over the train’s engine. “Can’t you just shut up? We’ve still got an hour before we reach Ipswich and I might kill all three of us by then. Trip, stop looking at Fitz. Fitz, just...stop.”

Fitz glared at her. “Stop what?”

“Looking like you’re going to make a mess of yourself every time Simmons breathes. She’s pretty, but not that pretty.”

Jemma playfully whacked Trip’s arm, but otherwise didn’t comment on his vulgarity. Even Fitz only sighed and said, “Well, it’s not your clothes she’s wearing, is it?”

At that, Jemma had to admit Fitz had a point. It had been a week since the trio had fully recognized the pattern of the disappearances of Ipswich’s prostitutes and had determined it to be their duty to investigate and put an end to these foul murders.

It had also been a week since Jemma had learned just how distracting Fitz found the idea of her legs. A week since she had found herself breathlessly in his bed with her legs around his waist and her bodice undone past the top of her corset. Her cheeks flushed as she remembered it.

“Jesus Christ,” Trip muttered. “I swear to god, if your lewd faces get us arrested…”

“Yeah,” Fitz said. “Christ, Simmons. Keep your trousers on.”

Jemma smiled. “They’re _your_ trousers.”

Fitz cursed under his breath and Trip sighed.

“We should have at least thought of a pseudonym for you,” Trip continued. “His family’s up in Glasgow, mine’s in Philadelphia, but isn’t all yours around here?”

Jemma shrugged, but Fitz explained, “Simmons isn’t her real name anyway. It’s her mother’s. She won’t tell us her real name.”

“ _Fitz_.” They’d been over this before. “I’d like to be seen as myself, that’s all.”

“Well, unless your granny’s the Queen, I don’t see--”

“For fuck’s sake, Fitz, I’m not a damn princess. We’ve gone over this.”

Trip clucked his tongue. “Lovers’ spat?”

Both Fitz and Jemma glared at him. Still grinning, Trip checked his watch.

“We should still be there before sunset,” he said. “Find an inn to stay at before we start.”

Jemma nodded, happy to have the conversation go back to the task at hand. “Shall we review?” Although she knew that both boys were as familiar with the task as she was, it brought her some little comfort to remind herself exactly what they were getting themselves into. “Just outside Ipswich, a prostitute has been killed at least every week. Almost exactly once a week until…” She trailed off and looked at Fitz, who nodded.

“Until last week,” he continued for her, “when three victims were all found between last Saturday and Sunday mornings. We know the police are trying to keep it hidden because they don’t want people thinking that the Ripper’s back. Though, as Jemma rather disturbingly put it, the Ripper was precise with ‘surgical artistry.’ This is carnage and chaos. So now…”

“Now Simmons thinks we’re hunting vampires.” Trip sighed. “Shit, if my grandma knew this was what she sent me to England for...”

Jemma nodded and tried very hard not to imagine her mother or father’s faces if they were to see her now.

A few hours later, having found a few rooms at an inn to spend the night and leave their spare clothing, they made their way towards the docks, each with a small satchel over their shoulder. Fitz kicked a piece of driftwood as they wandered through the damp darkness and asked, “What are the chances we die tonight?”

“We won’t,” Trip said determinedly. He pulled back his jacket to reveal a pistol holstered to his hip and gave a cocky grin. “Professionally trained sharpshooter. Half the boarding house owes me because no one thought I could shoot a shot glass off their head.”

“Shot glass?” Jemma raised her eyebrows. “Impressive. But we won’t need guns.”

Fitz blanched. “ _Jemma_. We are dealing with demons at best and vampires at worst. Let the man use the damn gun.”

She sighed and reached into her— _his_ pocket and pulled out a small leather case. “An antiserum,” she said simply.

Fitz stopped and turned to her. “Jemma,” he said softly.

“They don’t deserve to die.” She turned to Trip. “Assuming vampirism works in any way like demonic possession, there must be a way to kill the evil without harming the host.”

Trip nodded, but said, “But you can’t make that without a sample, right?”

“I can try. Trial and error.”

Fitz let out an exasperated huff of air. “Trial and error doesn’t always work, Jemma.”

“It worked for me.”

“But not for Ace.”

Jemma drew herself to her full height, her face as still as though he had slapped her. “No,” she hissed. “Not for Ace. Nor for countless other children. _Life_ is trial and error, Fitz. Don’t blame me for being a success.” She turned from him and continued walking. “I thought you were a scientist.”

She felt bad almost immediately, even more after hearing Fitz’s dejected, “ _Jemma_.” But it didn’t matter. Before she could process another response, she heard Trip cry out and, a moment later, she was on her stomach, the leather case slipping from her hand as her cheek pressed against the cobblestone.

The warm, metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth. She tried to push herself up, but the weight of her assailant kept her down. Something soft and fine ghosted over the back of her neck, accompanied by a cool hiss of air. A shot rang out behind her and she was glad Trip had brought his pistol. A sticky warmth that could only be her assailant’s blood sprayed out over the back of her neck. Although they hissed, they did not cry out. Nor collapse. Nor free her. There was only the feeling of someone turning slightly. A hiccup. A pause. A hesitation. With all her strength, Jemma rolled over. Her attacker tottered for a moment, but remained on top. There was a high shriek (or perhaps a hundred) coming from all directions. She blinked up at her assailant, throwing up her hands to grab their shoulders. The first thing she noticed was that her attacker was a girl. She was in a modest white dress with a high lace neck, the kind her mother might insist her sister wear to a party because she was Not A Woman Yet. But in the center of the chest, the dress had torn open and a tangle of flesh and blood and bone.

The redness spread like a watercolor over the soiled cotton and then the girl's oblivious fingers scraped at Jemma’s cheeks. Swallowing down the bile rising in her throat, Jemma found the girl’s face and realized that she may very well not be a girl at all.

The hair curtaining her face was so blonde it was nearly as white as the face it masked. Her porcelain expressions seemed unperturbed by her wound and Jemma may have been terrified by the sharpness of her cheekbones had it not been for her eyes. Bright and glowing with impossibly red irises, her— _its_ eyes blinked once and widened as it grinned down at Jemma, revealing a seemingly delicate set of razor sharp teeth. For the briefest moment, Jemma found herself thinking of the fanged piranhas of the Amazon and wondered how such a trait would manifest in a human. But then the creature let out another shrill shriek that chorused around them and Jemma knew that this was no human. 

The creature reared its head back and Jemma knew, in that moment, she was going to die. A shot rang out and Jemma watched in disgusted mesmerization as the bullet tore through the creature’s forehead from behind, soaring forward and landing somewhere behind her. Blood and bones and brain exploded above her, showering down upon her face, and the creature collapsed, dead, on top of her. 

Trembling, Jemma pushed the creature off of her and, grabbing her case, stood without ever taking her eyes off of it. 

“I was supposed to save her,” she whispered. The gunshot rang in her ear, deafening her to anything else. “I was supposed to save her.” Fumbling and without blinking, Jemma opened the case and forced the syringe into the vial, filling it with her antiserum. Barely, she registered someone call her name.

“I can do this,” she whispered.

She was about to bend down, waste her trial on an already dead creature, when someone ran full force into her back and knocked her to the ground. Jemma yelled out, her own scream breaking through her shock.

“Stay _down_ , Jemma,” Fitz whispered in her ear, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Another shot rang out and another identical pair of red eyes collapsed, staring unseeing at Jemma.

“Aim for the head, Trip!” Fitz yelled, his voice ringing in Jemma’s ear. 

“The chest!” she screamed. “The chest!”

Fitz tightened his arms around her. “It doesn’t kill them. It doesn’t phase them.”

“Please, Trip!”

Several more shots rang out and one creature fell to her knees from the force and looked as though she was about to rise again. But then, noticing Fitz and Jemma, she began crawling towards them. Panting, Jemma extracted herself from Fitz’s grip and plunged the syringe into the creature's chest.

“Jemma!” Fitz grabbed her waist and pulled her back. 

The creature let out a shriek, her mouth opened wide and exposing her sharp, blood-drenched teeth. Her red eyes went completely black—irises, whites, and all—and Jemma whimpered, watching in utter horror, as her veins grew darker and darker—a black web under pearl white skin. The creature choked, its own blood bubbling up out of its mouth and dribbling down its chin and onto its white dress. It lifted its arm, long bony fingers extended towards Jemma, breathed a pitiful sigh, and collapsed.

Jemma had killed it.

She scrambled backwards, fully into Fitz’s lap.

“Let’s go!” Trip yelled. “Now! Before there’s more.”

He ran over to them, helping both to stand.

“Let’s go,” he repeated.

“I killed it,” Jemma whispered, still looking down. “I killed her.”

“And I killed five more,” Trip hissed, grabbing her arm. “Fitz-Simmons, we’ve got to go.”

He began to pull, but it was Fitz who said, “Wait.” He took his handkerchief from his pocket and gently reached up to wipe Jemma’s face. “She can’t go into town like this.”

Jemma stood still as Fitz cleaned her face. 

“A vial,” she whispered. “There’s a vial in my bag.”

Fitz nodded, understanding her fully as he always did, and pressed his handkerchief into her hand. While she finished cleaning her own face, he took the vial, uncapped it, and filled it with the blood of the nearest creature. No one said anything as they made their way back into town, shaken and sore, until they reentered the inn in which they were staying the night andTrip asked Jemma:

“Bed or whiskey?”

“Whiskey.”

“Fitz?”

“Yeah, whiskey’s good.”

Trip went off in search of the barmaid and Fitz and Jemma retreated to a table in the back corner.

“We could have died, Fitz,” Jemma said, her voice trembling as she sat down.

“But we didn’t.”

“But we could have. _You_ could have. Because of me.”

Fitz rolled his eyes. “Don’t talk nonsense,” he said. “We did what we had to do.”

“Nothing’s changed.”

Fitz grabbed her hands. “Trial and error, Jemma. I think, unfortunately, there may be a next time.”

Jemma managed a smile. “This is how I know you love me.” She sighed. “If only I had a sample. Not just blood, but an actual living (if you can call it that!) sample.”

Trip laughed as he returned, slamming the whiskeys down on the table. “Yeah, that is definitely something I will not help with. Kidnapping vampires is where I draw the line.”

Jemma smiled as she picked up her glass. “I know. It would be useful, though, to see where I went wrong. What’s trial and error if you can’t examine the results?”

“Staying alive, Simmons.” Trip turned to Fitz. “She needs to get her priorities straight.”

Uncomfortable, Fitz looked back and forth between his companions. “I’m...I’m not her keeper.”

Trip let out another howl of laughter. “I’m not saying you are. I’m just saying we need to team up to keep her alive. And,” he continued, grinning, “Just, as a casual observer, whiskey was not the choice I would have gone with. In either of your shoes.”

Fitz blushed but Jemma took a long sip of her drink and said, “Whiskey in bed was not an option.” With that, she down the last of her whiskey and turned to Fitz. “Drink up or I’ll finish for you.”

Impossibly redder, Fitz took his drink and knocked it back in a single go.

Trip snorted. “Shit. You keep drinking like that and she’ll finish you.”

It was Jemma’s turn to blush, but even so she countered, “That is not determined by whiskey consumption. It’s simply a matter of how many ti—”

“Goodnight, Trip!” Fitz stood up with such force that the table shook. He glanced down at Jemma. “Are you coming?”

She swallowed and nodded. “Goodnight, Trip.”

Trip laughed. “You both look so damned terrified. I promise you: this is not the most frightening part of your night.”

Both Jemma and Fitz laughed and, muttering a final goodnight, made their way up to one of the two rooms they had rented. Jemma shut the door behind her and immediately expected Fitz to press her hard against it.

Instead, he took both her hands in his own. “We don’t have to,” he said, guiding her to the bed. “We don’t have to do anything. We can just sleep.”

Jemma didn’t sit, but cocked her head to the side. “You don’t want to have _intercourse_?” She dropped her voice at the last word.

Fitz smiled and kissed her forehead. “‘Intercourse,’” he repeated. “You’re clinical, even for a scientist.”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to fuck?”

He burst out laughing. “I love you,” he said. “And I want you. Very badly. But I don’t want to force myself on you if you’re...in a state.”

“I’m in no worse state than you are,” she said. And then, “Kiss me. Please.”

He was helpless to resist. He planted a single kiss to her forehead and then one to each cheek. He kissed the tip of her nose and, as her eyes fluttered shut, kissed each eyelid.

“Fitz,” she whispered, as he trailed his lips along her jaw and down her neck to where her throat disappeared into her shirt. _His_ shirt.

“Do you know how distracting this has been?” he asked, popping open the first few buttons to expose her collarbone. He sucked softly at the skin.

Jemma whimpered in lieu of response, tilting her head back to grant him better access. She took his hand and guided it into the opening of her shirt, cupping her breast over her corset.

“ _Jemma_.”

The sound of her own name so delicately, Jemma stepped back. Fitz stared at her for a moment, confused. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Jemma said. Before she could change her mind, she pulled Fitz’s shirt off over her head and undid the borrowed trousers until they fell to the floor and puddled at her ankles. Without meeting Fitz’s eyes, she undid the clasps of her corset and took a deep breath, standing there only in her shift and drawers.

She exhaled sharply. 

“Am I doing this alone or are you joining me?”

Fitz immediately began undoing his suspenders. “Definitely, _definitely_ not alone.”

Jemma stared, toying with her lower lip between her teeth and Fitz removed his shirt and trousers. Their combined nerves flooded the room in discomfort and she could not help but gesture at his union-suit and joked:

“That doesn’t seem very convenient. Especially not right now.”

Fitz laughed as he began undoing the buttons. “And, on a day when you’re not in my clothes, exactly how many layers do you wear?” He pulled his arms from the sleeves until the garment merely hung on his hips. 

“Touché,” Jemma said, color rushing to her cheeks.

“You’re staring.”

“Mmm.”

“Jemma.”

With a sigh, Jemma pulled her shift over her head so that she was standing only in her drawers. “Who’s staring now?” she asked.

Fitz blinked once. “Can you blame me?”

Jemma finally sat on the edge of the bed. “Will you kiss me?” She moved backwards until her back was against the wall and her legs stretched out before her.

Fitz knelt between her knees. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

_My darling sister,_

_I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that I am not in love with Mr. Fitz. I must admit I am hopeless in my love for him. Don't fear that I have become one of those silly girls who cannot be anything without a man. I know my worth and I am defined by myself and no one else. I know that I am smart and kind and brilliant and beautiful. But I do think I depend on him for happiness, for those moments in which I have seen him happy are the best of my life. I think that I was robbed of a necessary part of my soul all those years ago and that it is only now, when I wake in his arms, that I feel that I truly belong on this Earth. He is my second self. When I am with him, I am unhunted by the dark._

_Love always, your hopeless older sister,_  
_Jemma_

* * *

There are many sights, like a group of unruly young people on a train carriage, that should attract attention and do not. One such sight is a sober man alone after midnight. Such a sight is only made more in need of attention when its location has known recent violence. These particular sights, however, never garner any attention, for there is no one there to witness them unless they themselves have something to hide. So some hours before dawn, as a tall and handsome man strolled the docks of Ipswich without caring about the blood that filled his shoes, he was well assured that nobody would be around to witness him. Making a soft, disappointed _tsk_ ing noise with his tongue, he walked through the dead girls with the holes in their heads. How unuseful, he thought, and kicked one after another into the sea. He approached the last girl and stopped. While the others had all been as pale in their final deaths as they had been in the one before, this one was marred by thick blue-black veins that had burst and leaked beneath her skin. Black blood and bile were still pooled in her mouth and dripping over the sides. Her arm with its bursted veins was outstretched. The man bent down and plucked something from her chest.

There are many things that attract attention and remind us of our past, of the friends we have somehow lost along the way, and that creates the feeling of nostalgia. There are many things that attract attention and we wish that they had not and those are the harbingers of the end, whether the end of life or love or everything, it makes no difference.

The man smiled and closed his hand. His attraction was captured and one must ask, “To what end?”

One is a fool.

* * *

_She fell through the night unable to scream, unable to close her eyes. She fell through the night away from her sister’s shrieks, her father’s shout, from the warmth of someone’s hand on her back. She could feel the night seeping into her, clawing its way into her eyes, her nose, her unscreaming mouth. It burnt her tongue, scratched at her teeth, and she swore it was desperate to pull the scream from her. But it couldn’t._

_Her sense of hearing failed her through the deafening nothing._

_Her sense of touch failed her through the suffocating solitude._

_Her sense of taste failed her through the lack of iron in the blood filling her mouth._

_But she could not scream because she refused to believe her sight had failed her. She could not be falling through night because night is never as dark as it wants to be. This was not night._

_This was nothing._

_She shut her mouth, her eyes, her mind, and tried to will herself back to life._

_When she opened her eyes, she was still. The ground was as hard and cold as she was, and, when she tried to blink away the blood red light, her eyes would not shut and she knew she was dead. A body shifted and laid beside her. There was a frozen, familiar warmth in the eyes she recognized from girlhood. Warm breath against her face clouded her senses as the body shifted closer and closer against her until iron-coated lips pressed against hers and, in death, she could neither kiss back nor push away. She could only wait until that soft, terrible, awesome voice shattered the silence and she knew that this was not nothing, but Hell._

_“A deal is a deal.”_

_Every atom in her body split as she was ripped away._


	2. Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Coulsons and Mr. Peterson go searching for assistance, Fitz and Simmons get an unexpected new client, and Daisy continues to madden her parents.

_ 19 December 1892  
_ _ London, England _

Mr. Philip J. Coulson of London had once been considered among the more respectable men in society. An honorable veteran of the American Civil War and married to a proper society girl, he had found himself and his adventurousness much appreciated in high society. However, in the twenty years, three months, and eight days since Mrs. Coulson had died and her daughter had been born, much had changed. First, he had written that scathing article for the  _ Times _ detailing the atrocities committed by his fellow explorers in central Africa. Then, he had brought his wartime friend, a tall Black American man, across the Atlantic to live with him and his young daughter. His new Chinese wife might have at least provided some excitement for the society ladies (it was the 1880s, after all, and the East, if only in art, brought about much fascination), had she not been joined by her own illegitimate daughter, her adamancy to be known by her maiden name alone, and her strong American accent. When the elder Miss Coulson (or simply Miss Coulson, if her father’s critics had anything to say about it) had gone off to Cambridge rather than a husband’s home, it had only been the latest scandal brought upon her father in her lifetime (and that was with allowing society to believe she had registered under her father’s name and with his consent, neither of which were true). But Mr. Coulson always seemed immune, in some way or another, to the scandal surrounding his name, as he did on that rainy December night on which our story begins with the search for a demonologist.

Miss Daisy Coulson had been alive for seventeen years and had been her father’s daughter for seven of them. As such, she had no hesitancy to pout and clutch his hand after her mother walked past her, grabbed her newspaper, and threw it into the fireplace.

“Papa, you can’t let her treat me like a child!”

Coulson kissed her head. “You are a child,” he told her. 

“A  _ sick _ child,” added her mother, returning to her daughter and kissing her as well. “The news is stressful and you need sleep.”

Daisy pulled back. “You’re just afraid I’ll be scared that Jack the Ripper is back.”

Her parents looked at each other.

“We’ll be late,” Coulson said.

“Go to bed, Daisy. He’s not back and, if he were, I should hope you have nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t know, Melinda, dear. We have raised some horribly sneaky daughters.”

“Papa!”

“Phil!”

Coulson looked at his wife as though daring her to disagree. To anyone else, she might have looked apathetic at best and cross at worst, but Coulson knew she was smiling.

“I think registering under a false name at Cambridge behind your parents’ backs is a far cry from prostitution.”

“Papa,” Daisy added, “Can we just not insinuate that either of us are prostitutes?”

May squeezed her shoulder. “To bed, Miss Daisy.”

“But, Mama—”

May fixed her with a stern gaze.

“I could go off to Cambridge, too, and then I could read whatever I want.”

Rubbing his face, Coulson let out a deep sigh. “Listen to your mother, Daisy. I’m sure you and your sister will want to spend the next week galavanting around London, but I swear I won’t let you if you’re still sick.”

The front door opened.

“Coulson, May, we’ll be late.”

Daisy leaned over the arm of her chair, stretching for a view of the front hall. “Uncle Mike, will you bring me a newspaper?”

“No.”

“What if I promise to sneak out and get my own if you don’t?”

Mike stepped heavily into the room and leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. “Sure. I’ll bring you a paper.”

“Liar.” But Daisy smiled in spite of herself. “I suppose I should say goodnight now?”

All three adults nodded and Daisy groaned, said goodnight, and went upstairs, wishing it was worth it to write to her sister.

“Are we walking?” Coulson asked as he shut the door behind his wife. “It’s an awful night.”

“Best not draw attention,” said Mike, opening the front gate and ushering May before him. “Is that a problem?”

“I’d have worn different shoes.”

May scoffed. “Discretion seems so lost on you, dear.” She paused, then said, “You’re worried.” 

Coulson laughed. “We have two daughters, both of whom have been controlled in their lives by spirits I used to think fantasy, who always do the exact opposite of what we say, and a rise in particularly gruesome murders catching at least one of their interests. I’d be a fool to not be afraid.”

“So you’ve chosen to further involve ourselves?”

“If it protects the girls, yes. They say this Cambridge fellow is the best. Utterly brilliant demonologist isn’t even half of it. They say he knows all there is to know about the darkness that hunts us.”

“Or the darkness we hunt.”

“Ha! I knew there was a good reason I married you.”

May snorted. “I thought you married me to get your mother to stop asking you to remarry. And because you had convinced yourself it would save my reputation.”

“I married you because Mike bet I couldn’t.”

“Best bet I ever made.”

Coulson laughed. “You know you are my dearest friend, Mike, but you still haven’t paid that one.”

Mike laughed, but May trudged ahead of them. “I do so often feel as though I am the one living with a married couple.”

Her husband’s response was lost in the wind. They walked in silence through the London streets, weaving their way through the night strollers of the parks as they emerged closer to the Thames and continued their journey northwards. Just when Coulson was about to give up on his efforts to avoid his wife’s ire and complain (briefly) about the length of their walk, Mike ducked into an alleyway and said, “Just here,” before knocking on the third door on the left.

“This Cambridge fellow better be worth it.”

“They say he’s the best,” May said, taking her husband’s elbow and reaching forward to knock again.

“It’s open!” a man with a thick Scottish accent called from inside.

They opened the door to find a dreary little room, cluttered with unorganized books and only slightly more organized medical supplies. A pale boy sat at a workbench, goggles pulled down around his eyes, as he examined some trinket before him.

“Misters Coulson and Peterson, I presume?” he asked, without looking up.

May sighed. “And you’re Dr. Fitzsimmons?”

The boy looked up. “Um...not exactly, ma’am.”

“No, I thought not. I have daughters your age.”

The boy took off his goggles and shook his head. “No, no, I am...Fitz. Just Fitz. Simmons will be in town tomorrow. And we’re not doctors quite yet, but that’s through no fault of our own.”

Coulson laughed. “You sound quite like my daughter, Mr. Fitz. May I introduce my wife, Mrs. Melinda May, and our associate, Mr. Mike Peterson.”

“Hello,” Mr. Fitz said quickly, before realizing that polite company expected more and he walked around the table. “How do you do?”

He bowed at May, shook Mike’s hand, and stood awkwardly in front of Coulson for a moment, hand outstretched, before Coulson held out the blunt end of his right elbow and said, “Forgive me, I left my hand on the wrong side of the Atlantic.”

“Ignore my husband, Mr. Fitz,” May said as the boy in question began to stammer a response. “You look young to be a renowned demonologist.”

“Just Fitz is fine, ma’am.” He gestured for them to take a seat on the rather rickety looking chairs that made up his office, if one could call it that. “And ‘renown’ may not be the best word. Yet, of course. Our techniques are...different.”

“Forgive me,” Coulson said as he sat. “I expected someone less youthful.”

“Yes, well, I’m far more brilliant than any other demonologist you’ll find. Not as brilliant as Simmons, maybe, but at least one of us must find time to sleep and eat amongst all the studying.”

Mike smiled. “I like him. How old are you?”

“Twenty, sir.”

“The same age as our daughter,” May pointed out, staring at her husband with the intensity of two people who excel at their own forms of communication.

Coulson shrugged. “He says he’s brilliant.”

“So does she.”

“She  _ is _ brilliant.”

Mr. Fitz cleared his throat. “With all due respect, ma’am, I am actually brilliant.”

May ignored him, looking between her husband and Mike. “And what if it goes wrong? Do you want this child’s blood on our hands?”

“It won’t come to that,” said Mike adamantly before turning back to Mr. Fitz. “You said in your letters you have training as an engineer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So why fall into the world of the preternatural?”

This question, at least, Mr. Fitz seemed well prepared for. “No one enters this world on purpose, Mr. Peterson. I could ask the same question of you. But, as it happened, Simmons needed an engineer.”

“Why?”

“Vaccine delivery device. Well, more of an antiserum, really, if you ask Simmons. I don’t quite know the difference.”

May sat up a little straighter in her chair. “You’re telling me you can exorcise someone with medicine?”

“We’re still testing. But we are committed to this research. Even if the antiserum isn’t functional yet, we can provide assistance in exchange for access to new...specimens.”

“So you’ll work with us, fully understanding that every call is ours to make?”

Mr. Fitz nodded. “We could be persuaded, sir. Simmons will be in London tomorrow and I’ll have to confer with—”

“Excellent,” Coulson interjected, standing up and taking a card from his pocket. “You both will join us for dinner tomorrow night.” At his wife’s raised eyebrow, he added, “My daughters are excellent judges of character. They will, of course, be sent away before we discuss business. Goodnight, Mr. Fitz.”

With a quick exchange of pleasantries, Coulson, Mike, and May left, leaving Fitz alone.

Unlike Mr. Philip J. Coulson, Mr. Leopold James Fitz of Glasgow never had much of a reputation to begin with. The genius bastard of a poor Jewish girl, Fitz (who refused to acknowledge his given name, as any sensible Leopold should) never had much of a chance. His mother had tried, poor girl, but by the time Fitz could talk, he hardly made a spot of sense to anyone without university training. But, despite it all, he had gotten himself into Cambridge and had even found work at one of the university libraries to help him pay tuition. It was there that he had met the thus-far (though not for much longer) elusive Simmons. Their first year, he had been too nervous to say anything, but two and a half months ago, they had found themselves as friends and then, not even a month later, friends who spent most of their time getting each other  _ out _ of their clothes. All in all, Fitz was a young man whose life would have caused much scandal had anyone bothered to pay attention and he was very lucky no one had yet. It was not long after Mr. Coulson, Mr. Peterson, and Mrs. May ( _ though _ , he thought,  _ wouldn’t she be Mrs. Coulson? _ ) had left that someone else knocked on his door.

“It’s open!” Fitz fancied himself a busy man and, more importantly, fancied others believing he was a busy man, and set back to work as the door opened and let in a cold breeze.

“Damn this bloody rain, I feel like I’ve trekked across the Arctic!”

Fitz dropped his tools. “Jemma! What are you doing here?”

The door slammed shut and a young woman in a blue travelling coat who was, impossibly, even paler than Fitz himself, looked incredulously around the dingy room. “Well, it’s our lab. Why shouldn’t I be here?” She smiled at him. “Tell me this is the lab.”

Fitz grinned and stood, watching as she removed her hat and scarf and began to walk around. “It is. But it’s ten! In the evening!”

“It is. You’ve organized things magnificently. Is it condescending to say I’m proud of you?” She circled behind him and, removing her coat, draped it over his chair.

“I thought you were coming on the ten o’clock train tomorrow morning.”

She laughed and sat on the workbench, nudging his knee with the ankle. “So does my father. I’ll have to be back at the station by then.”

“Miss Simmons, what have you done?”

It should be noted that presence, brilliance, and sex of Miss Jemma Simmons would come as a certain shock to their newest clients, but that is a story we will have to return to. For now, Jemma Simmons simply shrugged as she plucked her gloves off, finger by finger. 

“Nothing terrible. Only a rather fiendish deal. As it turns out, I’m quite the matchmaker. Or madame. To be determined.”

“Jemma!”

“It’s nothing, Fitz. I simply wanted to see you and the girls’ college will have my bags loaded onto the train for me, as long as either my chaperone or myself is there to sign for them. So Trip kindly agreed to chaperone me home tomorrow.”

“Oh, did he?”

“Yes, and he didn’t make half a fuss about it as long as I promised to make a proper introduction with my sister. So when Papa gets to the train tomorrow, I will exit with a kind, young American who will remind my father of home, and I can invite him for tea.”

She smiled, quite pleased with herself, and Fitz’s gaze followed her arm down to her hand where it toyed aimlessly with her skirts. “And, pray tell, Miss Simmons,” he said, reaching towards her lap and entangling her fingers with his own, “why not just come on the late train with Trip?”

“You’re a genius. Can’t you guess?”

Fitz splayed his fingers over her hand to allow his pinkie to hook itself into the folds of her skirts. “You’ll have to enlighten me.”

Jemma smiled, biting her lower lip slightly. “I’m afraid it’s a secret, Mr. Fitz.”

“Oh?”

“No.”

Fitz laughed. “So not a secret?”

“Just a whisper.”

Still keeping his fingers entwined in her skirt, Fitz stood, placing his other hand on her hip to balance himself. “Only a whisper?”

Jemma silently mouthed something towards him.

“I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Then you’ll have to come closer.”

Fitz shifted slightly, pressing Jemma’s hand deeper into her skirt. She grinned and brought her free hand up to his cravat.

“Closer still, I’m afraid.”

He twisted his hand, bunching up her skirt in her lap. “Close enough?”

Jemma nodded. “I missed you.”

Fitz grinned as he leaned in to kiss her, pulling hard at her hips until they were flushed together. He continued balling up her skirt until his fingers found her stocking ties, playing with the silk ribbon until she whined and brought his hand to the flesh between the top of her stockings and the bottom of her drawers. “Is that all?” he asked.

“I had to tell you that my parents’ are hosting a dinner party tomorrow that they’re demanding me at. I’m afraid they might be starting the parade of potential husbands. I thought they were above that. Or that I’d outgrown it and they had decided spinsterhood suited me”

“And you couldn’t put that in a letter or cable?” He inched his hand up, edging beneath the silk.

“I rather like it when you’re jealous, Fitz.”

“Are you interested in any of these potential fellows?”

“No.”

“Then my only jealousy comes from any man knowing your last name.”

Jemma sighed and rolled her eyes. “In time, Fitz.”

“I won’t call on your father, I swear. But it’s only fair to tell me your name so I know when I see him.”

Jemma laughed. “Jemma is my name, darling.”

“And Simmons?”

“A family name.”

“But not your family name.”

“My mother’s, isn’t that enough?”

Fitz let his hand slip between her legs and began undoing the laces of her drawers.

“Fi-itz.” Jemma wiggled her hips forward, feeling the warmth of his hand so close and nowhere near close enough. His fingers grazed her folds as he worked the laces and she let out a whine.

“Tell me why,” he whispered against her neck. “Tell me why and I’ll do anything you want of me.”

“Anything?” She hooked her fingers through his suspenders.

He nodded.

“I suppose I like the mystery of it all.” She released his suspenders and moved her hand down slowly to cup him through his trousers. “And, as it would seem, so do you.”

Fitz laughed, burying his face in her neck with a soft sigh. “I don’t have a sheath.”

Jemma kissed the top of his head. “I had the whole compartment to myself on the train.”

Fitz immediately straightened up and stared at her, gobsmacked. “Do you mean to tell me, Jemma, that you, a lady of respectable status, put in your diaphragm  _ on the train _ ?”

“Are you imagining it?”

“What if the conductor came in for your ticket?”

“I’m not stupid, Fitz. I waited until he had passed through.”

“Jemma!”

“Well, it’s your fault,” she snapped removing her hand from his trousers and making quick work of the top buttons of her dress, just past the top of her corset. “I kept thinking, ‘What if I had taken the train with Fitz yesterday and we had the compartment to ourselves? Would he have thought it too degrading to take me right then and there? After all, the engines are so loud. It’s not like we’d have been heard.’ And then I got distracted for a bit, thinking about the mechanics and logistics of it all. Although, once you really think about it, it’s quite disturbing, what with all the germs and diseases that could be on those seats or in the carpet and—”

Fitz burst into laughter and kissed her soundly. “I am so in love with you,” he said when he finally chose to breathe.

Jemma grinned and blushed, putting her hand on his arm as he lowered her backwards onto the table. She circled her legs around him. “Are you really?”

“I think I’d marry you, if only I knew your last name.”

“Don’t be silly, I can’t have my family thinking I went off to college only to find a—”

He cut her off there, holding her tightly in his arms. Jemma closed her eyes in utter bliss, listening to Fitz’s repeated calls of her name. She had never been particularly attached to it as a name. It was hers and she owned it, but until she had fallen into Fitz’s bed, she had never truly loved her name. But she would listen to anything in his voice and would always come when he called.

When they had finished, he collapsed on top of her, his cheek resting right where her corset dug into her skin, and listened to the ferocious beating of her heart. He turned his head slightly and bit down upon her flesh.

“You’ve been reading too much on vampires,” Jemma whispered, tangling her fingers in his hair.

“I love you,” was his response. 

With a heavy sigh, he extricated himself from her arms and walked over to the sink. As soon as Jemma heard the water turn on, she opened her eyes and craned her neck to see him. 

“You didn’t say we had indoor plumbing!”

Fitz grinned as he ran a clean rag under the water. “It was at the top of your wishlist for the perfect lab.” He walked back to her and sat in the chair, his heart fluttering quit a bit at the way her eyes closed as he brought the cloth up her legs.

“Fitz?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t think I don’t know your tricks.”

“My tricks?” He turned his head to kiss her knee.

“Telling a girl you want to marry her before fucking her so hard she forgets. I’m too clever for that.”

“Well,” he said, tossing the cloth onto the table and retying her drawers and stockings, “when you give me your surname and I know who your father is, I’ll convince him that, Scottish bastard I may be, I’m the best damned man to marry his daughter.”

“And what will you say to convince him?”

He pulled her skirt back down, attempting to smooth it over her legs. “That I love you most passionately and worship the very ground you walk on. And that you’re a thousand times more clever and brilliant than I could ever imagine being.”

Despite her desire to remain calm, Jemma felt herself blushing furiously and hoped, futilely, that Fitz didn’t notice. “I thought you said that if I gave you my name, you wouldn’t go to my father.”

“Not immediately, at least.” He smiled as she sat back up, hair mussed and cheeks glowing. “You say all of those beautiful, dirty things, Jemma, and blush when I tell you I love you.”

Jemma shrugged. “I suppose I never thought anyone could love me as you do.”

Fitz reached out, silently begging her to slide from the table into his lap. Happily, she obliged and nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck. 

“I do love you completely,” he whispered.

“And I you.”

Fitz kissed the top of her head, running his hands up and down her arms. For a moment, Jemma felt impossibly serene. And then Fitz burst out into laughter.

“That’s no way to act when a lady tells you she’s in love with you!”

Fitz shook his head and wrapped his arms tightly around her middle, laughing so hard that tears welled in his eyes. “I forgot…” he trailed off, burying his face in her shoulder as his body shook with laughter.

“What is so funny?”

“The door!”

“What of it?”

“It’s unlocked! We had an inquirer right before you got here, I’ve been having people walk right in!”

Immediately, Jemma joined him in his laughter.

“You have to admit, it is rather thrilling!”

“ _ Jemma _ !”

“Will you deny it?”

“Well, no.”

“Good.” She smiled and kissed his jaw. “Tell me about this inquiry.”

“They were looking for a demonologist. I told them that you would be in tomorrow and, damn! They invited us to dinner tomorrow.”

“I can’t tomorrow!” Jemma pouted.

“Well, yes, I know that now. I have his card, I can drop off our regrets tomorrow.”

Jemma shook her head. “Don’t talk nonsense. You must go and see what they have to say. It could be fascinating!”

“Or dangerous. Sharp-toothed, red-eyed, try to kill us dangerous.”

“Still fascinating.”

Fitz sighed. “Anything for you, I suppose.”

Jemma squealed and hugged him. “What have I done in my life so good to deserve you?”

He kissed her cheek. “You were born.”

She smiled and allowed herself a few minutes of contentment in his arms.

“I had another reason for coming early.”

“Oh?”

“I do hate sleeping without you.”

At exactly a quarter to ten the next morning, Jemma arrived at the train station and made her way to where the front carriage would soon arrive. She could then sneak on easily, join Trip, and walk out again to search for her parents.

They did not call her a genius for nothing.

As the clock drew nearer to ten, the crowd of people at the platform grew. Not substantially, but enough that a young woman returning from a sexual rendezvous could pretend that her family would never find her.

Geniuses, however, are not always the brightest of minds outside of their chosen fields.

At four minutes to ten, a man stepped up behind her and took her elbow.

“Have you now mastered the art of teleportation, my dear?”

Eyes wide, Jemma turned around as slowly as she could while her father clicked his tongue. “Hello, Papa.”

“Jemma Anne Coulson, you must consider yourself very lucky that your mother was stopped by that gossiping cow Mrs. Howard and has not yet found her way to the platform.”

Cheeks burning, Jemma chanced a look up at her father. Though his expression was severe, his eyes maintained their warmth.

“I had an errand to attend to, Papa.”

“Did you now?”

“Yes, sir?”

“An errand so important you couldn’t cable us to tell us you were taking an early train? Where are your bags?”

Jemma looked back down at her feet. “On the train, Papa.”

Coulson sighed and, to his daughter’s surprise, pulled her close. “What will I do with you girls? Your sister is home sick and still threatening to hunt down this Jack the Ripper imitator.”

Jemma couldn’t help but laugh. “That sounds like Daisy. I miss her. I’ve missed you.”

“Save your hugs and affection for your arrival, dear. I must go and distract your mother.”

Jemma let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Papa.”

“I shall only hold it over you for the rest of your life.”

Jemma smiled and watched her father disappear into the crowd. When the train arrived, she immediately darted into the first carriage.

“Ah, Miss Simmons! I’d wondered where you’d scurried off to.”

Jemma spun around. “Mr. Triplet!”

She grinned as Trip handed her one of her smaller bags. “Has your family arrived?”

“My father and mother. Daisy’s sick, I’m afraid.”

Trip let out a dramatic sigh. “You mean I took the train alone for nothing?”

“No, you took the train alone so that I could go back with you! Anyway, Father’s already found me out.”

“Damn.”

“He’s not telling Mother, so there’s that to be grateful for. Do play along, though, I promise to have you over for tea.”

“You owe me, Simmons.”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I am racking up countless debts today.”

Fortunately, meeting her parents passed without incident, saving Coulson’s unnecessarily loud exclamation of gratitude for Trip’s seeing his daughter safely home. Jemma prayed that her mother would attribute it to more typical fatherly embarrassments. Fortunately, May said nothing of her husband’s obnoxious behavior and told Trip that she hoped he might call one day and that she would have Jemma send an invitation to tea.

The coach home was filled with questions typical of parents greeting their university student and she answered them best she could, hoping not to sound as though she had strayed so far from the biology she had intended to study. When they arrived, Mike was waiting for them in the doorway.

“Welcome home, Jemma,” he said warmly as Jemma ran to embrace him.

“I’ve missed you.”

“And I you.” He patted the top of her head before looking to her parents. “Daisy had breakfast and insisted she didn’t feel well and needed to rest.”

Coulson grinned. “So she’s secretly planning her attack of the Ripper in her closet?”

“Precisely.”

“Let her think she’s fooled us. Are you hungry, Jemma, dear?”

Jemma smiled. “Mostly just tired.”

May nodded. “You look it.” She kissed the top of Jemma’s head. “We’ll worry about unpacking later. I’ll run you a bath.”

Jemma squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Mama.”

As she sat at her vanity, combing her wet hair, she couldn’t help but think that, as much as she had originally missed her own room at school, she now missed Fitz’s bed even more. She flushed and ran her fingers across the dark marks at the collar of her dressing gown that Fitz had lovingly left the evening before. She began to hum to herself, looking at her chest as she remembered the thrill of his teeth at her breasts.

A rapping sound behind her shook her from her reverie, however, and, when she looked up, she saw Daisy’s reflection through the window in her mirror. She let out a gasp and ran to her window.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” she exclaimed, pulling the window open.

Daisy smiled as she climbed through, shaking the snow out of her hair. “Mama thinks I’m resting. And your window is easier to climb into when they’re home.”

“Aren’t you ill?”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a goose, Jem. It’s only a cold and Mother threw my newspaper in the fire.” She grinned and pulled a folded up paper from her pocket. Jemma sighed and sat down at the foot of her bed.

“I dread the day I must publish a study on the dangers of going out in the cold when one is already sick and must use you as a case study.”

“A tragic day, sweet sister, but you won’t tell.”

“Won’t I?”

Daisy smiled and sat beside her sister. “Imagine Mother’s terror--and Father’s--if they were to hear that someone had tried to cannibalize your breasts.”

Jemma gasped and brought her hand to cover the bruises. “I fell,” she stammered.

Daisy reached over and poked the bruise on top of her sister’s breast. “Into someone’s teeth, sweet sister?”

Jemma felt her cheeks go red. “Go away,” she snapped. “Before Mama comes to check on you.”

Daisy laughed and walked to the door with what Jemma could only call a swagger.

“Enjoy your nap, sweet, lovely, innocent Jemma,” she said as she opened the door. “I’d wish non-cannibalistic dreams, but--”

“Daisy?” Their mother’s voice floated up the stairs. “Are you awake?”

Daisy’s eyes went wide. “Only welcoming Jemma home, Mama!”

They could practically hear May rolling her eyes. “Go to bed, Daisy! Stop being foolish.”

With a final wink at Jemma, Daisy darted back to her room.

When Jemma awoke, the rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of unpacking and answering seemingly the exact same set of questions over and over again.

Yes, she was loving Cambridge.

Yes, the scientific resources were beyond anything she had imagined.

No, she wasn’t lonely or homesick (“though, of course, I missed you all terribly. Even you, Daisy.”)

Yes, she had friends.

Yes, she was staying safe.

The dinner party could not have come soon enough. At least if her prospects were terribly boring, Daisy would find a way to scandalize everyone. Fortunately, Coulson had informed the girls that it was something of a business dinner and that they would be excused after dessert. Jemma simultaneously couldn’t wait for and dreaded that freedom--she knew Daisy had a whole book of questions not meant for their parents’ ears.

She was just putting on her gloves when she heard a knock at the front door and the sound of her father going to answer. She tried to listen, but couldn’t make anything out. Their house was not conducive to eavesdropping (except, of course, for her mother. She had an uncanny ability to hear everything). Smoothing her skirt (a nice, non-offensive shade of violet that put her somewhere between a child and a spinster), she left her room. As she approached the top of the staircase, Coulson called for the family to come meet their guest. Her parent’s door opened and May stepped into the hall.

“Guest?” Jemma asked in an undertone, pulling on her gloves. “I thought there were two?”

Her mother opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted when Daisy burst into laughter downstairs. May sighed.

“I apologize,” came Coulson’s voice. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. Have you met before?”

“I’m certain he’s seen my photograph.” Daisy continued to laugh. “Oh, Father, I don’t think you’ve ever been so foolish. Surely there can only be so many Simmons’s with an affinity for the preternatural.”

Jemma cursed under her breath and ran down the stairs and into the parlor.

“Fitz!” 

Fitz turned around, his face pale. “J--Miss Si--Miss Coulson,” he managed to say. 

“Ah.” Everyone turned to May as she descended the stairs with her typical display of a complete lack of emotions pulled tightly over, her daughters were sure, an unfathomable rage. “You must be Jemma’s errand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I post new updates every Sunday :)


	3. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the daughter of a society man, Jemma has sat through her fair share of uncomfortable dinner parties. But one in which her parents host her secret lover as their guest might take the cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates every Sunday. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

For an excruciating eternity, Jemma shifted her gaze from her mother to her father to Fitz and back again toward her mother. He first thought, irrational as young people are wont to be, was to scold her father for telling her secret. Then, for a moment, she contemplated making up a story to justify their recognition of each other.

Most of her energy, however, was spent holding herself where she was despite her overwhelming desire to hold Fitz’s hand. Silently, she willed him not to talk. It was a waiting game now: who would break the silence first, Jemma or her parents.

If it wasn’t for knowing what awaited her below, Jemma would have begged the ground to open below her feet and let her fall into the abyss. There was no way this night would end in anything but disaster. She inhaled so deeply she could hear her neck crack. Still, neither she nor Fitz nor her mother nor her father spoke. It was Daisy, in the end, who broke the silence with a snort of laughter so unladylike Jemma was almost tempted to join. All eyes turned to her.

“It’s a pun!” She doubled over in laughter. “Jemma, if it were intentional, I’d be so proud!”

Jemma crossed her arms. “What on Earth are you going on about?”

“Well, you’re technically not a Simmons, are you? It’s fake. You’re a false Simmons. A Fitz-Simmons, if you will.”

Despite the uncomfortable terror that still overwhelmed his face, Jemma was sure Fitz nearly smiled. Jemma forced herself to do the same. Mike joined in Daisy’s laughter and walked over to take Jemma’s arm and help her ease those last few steps down the stairs.

“Are you going to introduce your friend, Jemma?”

She looked first to him and then, trembling, to her parents.

“Uncle, Mother, Father,” she began tentatively. “Surely I’ve mentioned Mr. Fitz in my letters.”

Coulson sat down in his armchair. “Not that I recall. Dear?”

May shook her head. “It seems as though our daughter has developed a penchant for deception.” 

Daisy smiled from the sofa. “Really? I think she’s alluded to quite a lot. He’s nearly as clever as she is. Though, remind me, Jemma, is he the one with peculiar eating habits?”

Jemma let out a choked gasp barely disguised as a cough. “Will you excuse us for a moment?” she asked. Before anyone could respond, she grabbed Fitz’s arm and half-dragged him back into the entrance hall and back out the front door, slamming it shut behind them. Fitz made to walk down the stoop but Jemma tightened her grip. 

“If we stay here, they can’t see us from the window.”

Fitz nodded, seemingly at a loss for words. After a moment he asked, “What peculiar eating habits do I have?”

Jemma blushed even deeper, heat pooling in her stomach, and wished that her father wasn’t almost certainly waiting for the most inopportune moment to open the door. “Me.”

It was Fitz’s turn to blush. “You told her about that?”

“You were rather...enthusiastic with your teeth. I didn’t say anything”

Fitz’s eyes darted down to the top of her dress before darting back up. “Did I hurt you?”

Jemma shook her head and bit down on her lower lip, reaching for his hand. “I actually rather liked it. I had just gotten out of the bath when she came in, though, and couldn’t hide anything. I won’t object to your exploring such habits again.”

Fitz laughed. “Don’t tell me you brought me out here to seduce me.”

Jemma leaned forward and gave him a quick peck on the nose. “I wish I could, but we need to strategize or we’re completely screwed.”

“Strategize?”

Jemma nodded. “We need a story. Something that--why are you laughing?”

“I’m sorry,” Fitz said. “But ‘We need a story?’ Why not, ‘we took several classes together and realized the we complement each other quite well, both academically and socially?’” He paused as though thinking deeply for a moment before adding in a whisper to her ear, “‘Also he’s asked me to marry him.’”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “You haven’t asked me to marry you, Fitz. You’ve simply told me that you’re going to. And I’m sure that science would support the notion that proposals made within five minutes of an orgasm are hardly proposals at all.”

“I know your father’s name now, Jemma Coulson. What’s to stop me from asking for your hand right now? Maybe it would make them more comfortable, give them something to celebrate.”

Jemma grinned. “I don’t think so. The meeting about hunting down the Devil in London might put a damper on the conversation. ‘I’m terribly sorry for the interruption, Mr. Coulson. But I know that Satan himself may be killing off half the eligible women in England and I must marry your daughter before he comes for her.’”

“Really? Marrying me would save you from Satan?”

“Well, with a co--”

The door swung open and Jemma dropped Fitz’s hand. “Father?”

“Dinner’s ready,” Coulson said calmly. “Unless you’d rather get your coat and explain to Mother and I _why_ you can’t join us…”

Bowing her head, Jemma pushed past her father and silently entered the house. She walked straight into the dining room and stood in the doorway, lips pursed and hands on her hips as she waited for everyone else to sit. The table was still set for seven with the presumption that Dr. Simmons was not only coming, but also was a separate person from the hosts’ daughter. She watched as everyone sat down: her parents at each head, Mike on her father’s right with Daisy in the middle seat beside him, and Fitz at her father’s left. The seats on either side of her mother remained empty. On her left, next to Daisy, was a plate intended for Miss Jemma Coulson, the host’s daughter. On May’s right was the empty plate intended for Dr. Simmons.

Jemma cleared her throat. 

“Where am I to sit?” she asked. “Am I to be your child or your guest? Oh! Or am I to start beside Daisy and move once we start talking business?”

May scoffed as she took her seat. “There’s been a change of plans. I would very much like to meet your friend, Jemma, dear, but this is not a business dinner.”

Daisy laughed. “So I was right, then? It’s not the Ripper, it’s the Devil!”

“Daisy,” May said. “Now is not the time. Jemma, sit.”

Jemma blinked and tilted her head. “It was dangerous business, wasn’t it? You wanted us to find him for you. Or were you to find him and we to stop him for you?”

“Jemma,” Coulson warned. “Sit down.”

Jemma took a deep breath and exhaled sharply out of her nose before boldly taking a seat next to Fitz. “You disappoint me, Father” she said, staring at her plate and ignoring the dish of green beans her mother pushed towards her. “If Miss Simmons showed up and wasn’t me, she’d still be someone’s daughter. And don’t tell me that it’s because I’m a child. Fitz is less than a month older than me and looks as much like a child as I do. He’s still someone’s son and you still asked him here.” 

She let her hand slip from her lap to dangle between her chair and Fitz’s, taking a shuddering breath when his fingers briefly grazed hers.

“Well, I for one think this should be a family affair,” Daisy said, her mouth full of potatoes. She had the decency to mime shame and swallow before continuing. “With dear Mr. Fitz, of course. Unless you object to little girls interfering in your middle aged adventure.”

“Daisy, this doesn’t concern you,” Coulson said at the same time Mike said:

“I don’t think your mother refers to your age, sex, or your relation.”

Jemma looked up to glare at her mother. “Then what?”

May set down her fork and stared at Jemma with such intensity that, for the first time in her life, she felt inexplicably foolish and immediately stared back down at her plate.

“I won’t see you get sick again.”

_Get sick_. It was her parents’ excuse for everything. ‘Don’t go out alone, you could get sick.’ ‘Don’t go to school, you could get sick.’ ‘Don’t skip church, you could get sick.’ Jemma looked back at her mother, picked up her wine glass, and took a sip so long she only stopped at her father’s hiss of “ _Jemma_.”

She set her glass down, but didn’t break eye contact with her mother. “You weren’t there. My ‘sickness,’ if that’s what you want to call it, is no concern of yours.” It had sounded cruel in her head and worse out loud, the type of cruelty that can only be passed from daughter to mother and immediately regretted. She bowed her head as May pursed her lips.

“What about your father? And Mike? Would you condemn them to lose you a second time just to make me lose you once? And if I lost you forever, what then?”

Immediately, Jemma raised her head, tears welling in her eyes. But she was determined not to let them fall. “That is _not_ what I meant.”

“Shocking as it may be to you Jemma, I believe every person at this table would be devastated by your loss. Isn’t that right, Mr. Fitz?”

Jemma swallowed and turned to Fitz, staring at him with pleading eyes. Not was not the time for honesty, much less a lover’s confession.

“I…” he began, “I understand your concern, Mrs. May. But the fact does remain that we are the best demonologists in London, perhaps in all of Britain. And we--” he looked at Jemma, silently conveying his next point before continuing. “--we don’t work alone. We have another partner. A gunman.”

May raised her eyebrow and Jemma nodded. “Mr. Antoine Triplett.”

“The one who accompanied you on the train?”

“The very same, Mother. He’s a rather accomplished sharpshooter.”

May stared at her, her anger suddenly vanishing from her face. She nodded slowly and, for the first time in Jemma’s life, she wondered if her mother would cry. But May simply said, “You’ve already begun, haven’t you?”

Jemma nodded.

“Go back to biology, darling, as you well know your life depends on it.”

Jemma shook her head. “Are you really so disappointed in me for following in your footsteps?”

“No, darling.” Jemma spun to face her father. “We’re just disappointed that we have to have ever learned of it. True safety would mean us never knowing”

Jemma nodded, unable to find the words. Fortunately, Fitz, as always, seemed to know her thoughts. 

“We’re smart, sir. And that makes us safe.” 

Coulson _hmph_ ed. “Then I suggest that we save this discussion for drinks.”

There was an immediate clatter of silverware as Daisy immediately began to finish her dinner as quickly as possible, hardly listening to her parents and Mike’s questioning of Fitz. Fortunately for Jemma, no one seemed to question the nature of their relationship, even as she inched her hand towards his chair under the table. Perhaps partners in hunting demons was a sufficient enough explanation of secrecy.

“So, Mr. Fitz,” Coulson began.

“Just Fitz is fine.”

“Very well, ‘Just Fitz,’ why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself? Where are you from? Who are your parents?”

Under the table, Jemma rested her hand on Fitz’s knee. Out of the corner of her eye, she was sure she saw May straighten her back just slightly.

Fitz nodded and set down his silverware. “I’m from Glasgow, originally, but I’ve been with a cousin in Manchester for about two years. He’s got a lot of ideas for building new machines, but no mind for how to actually make them. Worked for him for a bit to save up for school. Engineering doesn’t pay terribly, but I thought a degree might look nice.” He took a sip of his wine and Jemma squeezed his knee lightly. “My mother has a bookshop at home. My father walked out when I was little.”

Coulson bowed his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Good riddance,” Fitz said with a shrug. 

“And what, Mr. Fitz,” May asked, prompting everyone to turn towards her end of the table, “What made you switch from engineering to helping my daughter chase demons around Cambridge?”

Jemma opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, May said, “I asked Mr. Fitz, Jemma.”

Under the table, Fitz hooked his thumb with Jemma’s. “I’m still an engineer, technically. But I had stumbled upon...a classmate of mine discussing the merits of Shelley from a more scientific background–if electricity could be used to reanimate the dead. Forgive me, but I know more about electricity than most. I joined the discussion.”

“And what conclusions did you come to?”

Jemma spoke this time before her mother could stop her. “Death is death. Flesh could be reanimated, but flesh alone does not make a person.”

“Well said.”

She turned to her father. “Thank you.”

May took another bite of her roast. “The science behind a work of fiction is a far cry from hunting demons.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Fitz, and Jemma smiled at him, comforted by how calm he seemed to be. “But it got me curious about death as a whole. And my curiosity outweighed my nerves about talking to your daughter. She can be rather intimidating when she wants to be.

“Clearly not intimidating enough.”

After that, her father and Mike switched to discussing politics, with Fitz contributing just enough to seem interested and little enough that no one would know he could scarcely name the prime minister (though Daisy always seemed to find the worst moments to ask him a direct question about his leanings).

Without looking up from her plate, Jemma said to her mother, “It’s unlike you to be so quiet about politics.”

“It’s unlike you to be so deceptive.”

Setting down her silverware, Jemma turned to her mother. “Don’t lie to me, mama. You’d be more disappointed if I lived a boring life. You cannot be mad at me for doing exactly what you would have done. I’m trying to help people.”

May exhaled sharply into her wine. “Don’t get lost in this, Jemma. If you die, I will resurrect you for the sole purpose of scolding you until you wish you were never brought back.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” She reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand. May smiled and ran her thumb over the back of Jemma’s hand.

“I do hope you and Mr. Fitz are being safe, darling,” she said. “In all that you do.”

Jemma blushed furiously and drew back her hand as May stood up.

“Phil, darling, perhaps it’s time for a brandy.”

Coulson rose and, immediately, everyone else followed suit. Smiling, he walked around the table and put his hand on Daisy’s arm.

“Goodnight, darling,” he said, and bent to kiss her cheek.

Daisy pulled back, an incredulous expression coming over her face. She raised her eyebrows. “Do I look like a child to you?”

Coulson laughed. “Yes, like _my_ child.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Daisy.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re letting Jemma stay.”

Coulson shrugged. “Jemma’s twenty. I can’t control a damn thing she does.”

Daisy stared at her sister and, although Jemma knew she should look away, she didn’t. Instead she turned to her mother.

“You know my loyalty will always lie with Daisy, Mama. And you know I couldn’t lie to her if I wanted to.”

“You’ve been lying to everyone in this room. Clearly, you can when you need to, but if you cannot lie to save your sister’s life...”

Jemma clenched her fist at her sides. “May I be frank?” she asked.

“As if I have the power to stop you.” May’s face was stern.

Jemma resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I put every single life in this room before my own, every last one. But none more so than Daisy’s and you know that. The only one here who might be foolish with Daisy’s life might be whoever is too naive to realize that she’ll follow us whether we keep her safe and informed or not.”

“ _Jemma_!”

Jemma turned to her father but miraculously refused to lower her head in shame. “If Daisy is kept in the dark, she’s more likely to do something stupid and get hurt. She should at least know what is going on and come join us now,” she said, walking towards the doorway. “I think I could use a glass of brandy.”

Mike laughed and began to lead the way into the drawing room. “I think the wine has been enough, my dear.”

“I thought you at least would support me,” Jemma told him.

“I do,” he said, holding the door open for Daisy to dart out first. “But one day, god willing, there will be a child you love as much as I love you, and you will learn that support does not always mean agreement.”

Jemma mentally stored his words away, she would deal with them later, and then, struggling to prevent herself from declaring “Fuck it” out loud, she hooked her arm through Fitz’s and gestured towards the drawing room. Wordlessly, he brought his opposite hand to cover hers where it laid on his forearm. When they entered the drawing room, she guided him to the loveseat closest to the fire and sat (she was sure) too close to him for her parents’ comfort and clasped his hand in hers. Coulson opened his mouth as if to say something, but May put a silencing hand on his shoulder and sat next to him on the sofa.

“Daisy, beside me,” she said. 

While Daisy seemed to want to tease her sister, she clearly decided not to press her luck and sat beside her mother. May sighed.

“We could ignore it,” she said, as Mike handed her a glass of brandy. “It’s probably only a single man possessed.”

Fitz and Jemma looked at each other.

“You disagree,” Coulson observed.

Without taking her eyes off Fitz, Jemma nodded. After a moment, Fitz turned to face his hosts. “Sir,” he said, “Have you considered vampires?”

May scoffed and Jemma sighed.

“Mother, please.”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with your mother,” Coulson said, taking a sip of his brandy. “There’s simply no evidence that vampires even exist.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “That’s rich coming from the man who’s spent half his life hunting demons.”

Mike laughed from his chair by the fire. “We had evidence for that,” he said pointedly.

Jemma shook her head. “No. Ace and I were trial and error. It wasn’t evidence. It was process of elimination. Every possible truth had been eliminated.” She squeezed Fitz’s hand. “What’s that Doyle quotation Trip loves so much?”

Although Fitz smiled solemnly, she could tell he was fighting off a blush. “‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”

Nodding Jemma looked at Mike. “Neither of you ever suspected a demonic possession because it was too otherworldly, there wasn’t evidence until every other possibility was eliminated. You began with ‘the devil is impossible and must be eliminated.’ Premature elimination can be fatal. I survived for no other reason than I was not your first exposure.”

She looked at Fitz, unsure if she should continue. He ran his thumb over her knuckles, nodding as he caught her gaze. He squeezed her hand. “It’s all right, darling.”

She wasn’t sure if she should kiss or hit him, calling her darling in front of her parents like that. Hoping that her parents didn’t notice the miniscule movement, she angled herself to press her thigh flush against his (or, as flushed as it could be under the layers of her skirts). “There were some rumors,” she began looking directly at Fitz, unable to meet her parents’ or Mike’s eyes. “From Ipswich. Peculiar deaths and the like.”

“Jemma…”

She cast an apologetic look at her mother. “They kept happening and no one was doing anything. The victims were prostitutes and the police didn’t care.. They were brutal, Mother. So, so brutal. So we went.” She turned back to Fitz. “With Trip.”

He nodded. “Yes, with Trip. But what we saw, it didn’t fit anything we’d seen in our research.”

“We researched for weeks. I told Fitz and Trip everything. _Everything_. No one could have been as prepared as we were, Mama, Papa, you know me.”

Coulson smiled. “I don’t doubt it.”

“You’ve raised an inspiring woman,” Fitz said. “I think I’d have died of fright without her.”

May exhaled sharply. “Or you wouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

“Mother!”

May stood and rounded on her husband. “I’m sorry, but must you insist on indulging them? Mr. Coulson, look at me! This is absurd.”

Jemma began to rise, but Fitz squeezed her wrist. From beside their mother, Daisy caught Jemma’s eye and minutely shook her head. May continued.

“They are children, Phil. _Our_ children. This. Is. Foolishness. Look around you. Be it demons or vampires or the despicableness of a God-damned man, what does it matter? A couple of disgraced explorers and a group of _children_.” She laughed coldly. “To even think about it is suicide.”

Coulson nodded and took another sip of brandy, all without meeting May’s gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. May.”

“Oh, don’t you go demeaning me--”

“I am most certainly not demeaning you, but I would appreciate it if you would sit down and allow me a response.”

Silently, May sat down, still fixing her husband with a sharp stare. Jemma had never seen her so angry. She watched as Daisy took their mother’s hand and rested her head on her shoulder.

“No one’s life,” Coulson began, “will be needlessly wasted. I trust everyone in this room to accept that fact. However, before we make a decision, we must have all the facts. Jemma, dear, I hope you will take no offense if I ask Mr. Fitz to finish your story.”

Jemma nodded. “Of course.” She squeezed Fitz’s hand.

“Well,” he started, “We were able to trace down whoever was at fault to the docks”

“How?”

Fitz cocked his head. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“How were you able to find whoever was at fault?”

Fitz and Jemma looked at each other for a long moment before Jemma said, “There was a pattern. The bodies were always by water.”

“S _o you went after a madman_?”

Jemma tried to ignore the terror in her mother’s voice. “ _Madwoman_ ,” she whispered. “It was a woman.”

“Maybe.” Fitz swallowed. “They were female. Or at least they used to be.”

“They were so ghastly--”

“All identical--”

“Pale as death--”

“--dozens of them--”

“And certainly not alive.”

Coulson held up his hand to quiet the pair. “And what makes you say vampire?”

Jemma looked down at her lap. “None of the crime scenes had enough blood. That was the start of our suspicions.”

“But why vampires?” May asked. “Certainly Bedlam has their fair share of cannibals.”

For a minute, both Jemma and Fitz grew very quiet. Jemma shut her eyes and breathed in slowly as Fitz continued to hold her hand. 

“They teeth like a predator and...and they wouldn’t die,” she whispered at last, bringing her hand to her chest, not caring that Fitz’s fingers were still intertwined with hers. “Trip was shooting at them and, unless he got them right between the eyes, they kept coming.” Her heart raced at the memory and, determined not to cry, she looked at her mother head on. “We took—” She paused again and looked at Fitz. Now was not the time to tell her parents they had waited around to collect blood samples. So she lied. “We took off, Mama. We killed as many as we could and ran.”

May blinked twice before turning to Coulson. “We _cannot_ do this.”

“I’m making a cure,” Jemma said. They should know that, if not the sample part. “An antiserum. To help them, to help...children like us. We _must_ do this, Mama.”

“Phil, please.”

To Jemma’s dismay, Coulson nodded at his wife. “Fitz has already mentioned your attempts at an antiserum. I will look into the matter,” he said, “And make a decision. But Jemma, you must agree to abide by that decision. Or I cannot in good faith send you away at the end of the holidays.”

Jemma nodded. “Yes, Father.”

“You, as well, Daisy.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Mr. Fitz, I have no control over you, but I do hope you’ll take my rules for my daughters as a suggestion for yourself.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well.” Coulson rose and moved toward the door. “I would say this evening has been pleasurable, Mr. Fitz, but you would know I was lying. I do hope, however, we will see more of you. That is, of course, if you could refrain from calling on our Jemma unchaperoned.”

Fitz blushed furiously, extracting his hand from where Jemma still clutched it at her chest, and stood. “Of course, sir.”

Jemma stood to walk him out, but her father barked out a laugh as May, too, rose.

“No, my dear, I don’t think that’s necessary. Mother will see him out. Goodnight.”

“Father!”

“Jemma, Daisy, _goodnight_.”

Jemma sighed and turned to Fitz. “I’ll call tomorrow.”

May raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be silly, dear. Isn’t Mr. Triplet coming for tea? Mr. Fitz, you must join us. Twelve thirty?”

Fitz nodded. “Of course, Mrs. May.” He smiled at Jemma. “Goodnight.”

Jemma watched as he and May left the room. “You cannot ask me to do nothing, Father.”

“No,” Coulson said. “But I can ask you to stop once you have done enough. And I can ask you to trust me and your mother when we say it is enough. Now, please, go to bed.”

Although she knew it was childish, Jemma pouted as she made her way upstairs and didn’t stop until she was in bed, even when May came in as she was brushing her hair, kissed her brow, and whispered, “You do know how much I love you?”

No, Jemma had stared straight ahead, pouting the whole time. Only once she was completely in bed did she turn and groan into her pillow. Damn her parents--she hadn’t even gotten a kiss goodnight. She turned to the side and watched the snow fluttering down outside the window.

The window!

Grinning and mentally thanking Daisy, Jemma sat up.

Daisy had said it was an easy climb. And it would drop her over the dining room. This late, her parents and Mike would be in the library or drawing room. It was a brilliant idea! Quickly as she could, she got a plain day dress from her closet and slipped in on. Carefully and quietly as she could, she unlatched the window and pulled it open.

“Jemma?” Daisy knocked softly on the door and Jemma cursed as it opened. As soon as she stepped in, Daisy broke into a foolish grin and stifled a laugh. “I was going to joke that I only knocked in case _someone_ had snuck back in. Only I suppose it wasn’t as much of a joke as I thought.”

Jemma sighed and shut the window. “Must you ruin anything?”

“ _Au contraire_ , sweet sister. Always a step ahead, I believe Papa and Mike have decided to walk around the house as they discuss your vampires.”

Jemma groaned and dropped onto her bed.

“Oh, hush.” Without asking permission, Daisy pulled back Jemma’s blankets and climbed into bed. “I think you’re rather lucky, you know.”

Jemma stood up and took off the dress. Slipping her nightgown back on, she turned off the lamp and crawled into bed alongside her sister. “How so?”

“Well, you found a man for whom you’re willing to risk the discomfort of a dress without any underthings in winter. And one who would appreciate it.”

Jemma yanked her pillow out from under Daisy’s head and hit her with it.

“Hush, you’ll wake Mama,” Daisy hissed. “Anyway, Papa could have killed him tonight, but didn’t because you’re not completely ruined.”

Jemma rolled her eyes. “How wonderful.”

“I’m serious, Jemma. It takes being in a room with you two for maybe five seconds to realize that he’s half a heartbeat away from marrying you and not just some trash who’s fucking you.”

“ _Daisy!_ ”

“I didn’t believe you,” Daisy whispered. “When you told me you took back everything you’d ever believed and thought you were in love.”

“And?”

“I do now.”

Jemma smiled in the darkness. “I love him, Daisy. More than I thought was possible for anyone, least of all myself.”

“You’re not half as unlovable as you think you are.”

“I pity him for it, he’ll only get hurt. I just...he is _everything_ to me.”

Daisy laughed. “Just don’t go loving him more than me.”

“I couldn’t if I tried.”

“Good.” In the darkness, Daisy found Jemma’s cheek and kissed it. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being my sister.”

Jemma smiled. “That’s not something to thank me for. I just am.”

“I know, but still.” Daisy sighed in the darkness. “So...are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“The epic and scandalous romance of Jemma Coulson and...what is his first name?”

“Leopold, but don’t you ever dare call him that.”

“Ugh, I won’t. The epic and scandalous romance of Jemma Coulson, or Simmons, as it were, and Leopold Fitz.”

Jemma propped herself up on her elbow. “If you tell Mother or Father, I’ll use you as vampire bait.”

She could practically hear Daisy’s grin and couldn’t help but smile to herself as she figured out where to start. “He was telling the truth, when he mentioned Shelley and his curiosity. It would seem that his ability to avoid anything intriguing is matched only by my ability to lie.”

“How unfortunate.”

“I was curious about the murders already,” Jemma continued, ignoring Daisy’s remarks. “And I suppose he was looking for something to talk to me about.”

“Your breasts?”

“No, the murder of a local prostitute.”

“What is wrong with you?”

But Daisy spoke too loudly and soon there was a soft rapping at the door. Jemma sighed.

“Come in, Mama”

When May entered, she did not scold her girls. She merely went and sat at the foot of the bed and squeezed Daisy’s knee. “Did you know?”

“That Jemma was hunting demons at school? Not at all.”

“That your sweet, big sister had taken a lover.”

Daisy smacked her lips together and nuzzled against Jemma, who had squeezed her eyes shut. “I had my suspicions that she may have had a growing appreciation for the male species.”

May brushed Jemma’s hair off her face and smiled as Jemma’s eyes fluttered at the touch. “Are you happy, darling?”

Jemma opened her eyes. She trusted her mother completely and valued her judgement above all others. But she also knew that her judgement was passed swiftly and without redaction. There was nothing she could fathom more painful than her mother’s rejection of Fitz. Through demons, vampires, the whole of it, there was never in her life a moment so terrifying as this.

“I think he wants to marry me.”

Whatever May had been expecting, that was not it. In fact, she had been praying, naively, for questions regarding the mechanics of it all, anything to demonstrate that the woman before her was just a child, her child, and hers to protect. 

“Do you want to marry him?” she asked, silencing Daisy’s squeal of excitement with a sharp squeeze of her hand.

“Yes.” Of course, Jemma had yet to tell Fitz of this decision. Perhaps she could tell him tomorrow, if, after the fiasco that was their evening, he did indeed still want to marry her. “I love him, Mama. More than anything.”

“Except me,” Daisy whispered with a grin.

For a long while, Jemma stared at her mother, holding her sister against her, and waiting. May, on the other hand, waited for nothing. Instead, she sat there, thinking about the twelve year old child she had met hiding in the shadows. The girl with the big eyes and piercing curiosity, her fear, her childlike ability to see the goodness around her. It was something May had known for these last seven years: no matter the horrors she saw in the world, her new daughter would show her where to still find the goodness. She bent down and kissed Jemma’s brow.

“Sleep, my darling. God knows what Hell is in store for us.” She patted Daisy’s leg. “Come, Daisy. Who knows how long it’s been since Jemma has had a bed to herself.”

Jemma lay there in shock as her mother dragged her cackling sister from the room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Casey, for beta-ing and to you for reading!


	4. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At a dinner party, Jemma, Fitz, Daisy, and Trip meet the medium Madame Raina and a man who has come all the way from Chicago to seek his daughter. But things aren't as they appear and, at the party, they lose themselves.

There was always something jarring about the way her father’s accent seemed amplified when he met a fellow American, Jemma thought as she listened to him interrogate Trip. She dragged a finger idly over Fitz’s leg under the table, only half interested in the conversation.

“Do you find London and New York very different?” Coulson was asking.

Trip smiled, finishing a bite of soup. “Not yet, sir,” he said. “But I haven’t been in this city long enough to form an opinion.”

“They’re both disgusting, but I think I’m partial to London.”

Trip laughed. “One should hope so, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. You raised your family here.”

“There’s something special about it. Something old.”

Jemma turned to Trip. “My father loves history. More, I think, than he loves us.”

Daisy grinned, taking a sip of water. “So just be warned, Mr. Fitz, you mustn’t try to steal London from him. Jemma was bad enough.”

Jemma and Fitz both flushed, but Coulson and Trip laughed. May simply placed her spoon in her bowl.

“Tell us, Mr. Triplet,” she said, “Did you believe in the preternatural before coming to Cambridge? Or has my daughter dragged you unwillingly into this mess?”

Jemma clenched her jaw even as Fitz’s hand found her knee under the table. How like her mother, to prevent her from having even lunch without conflict.

But Trip only continued to smile good naturedly. “I always believed in the supernatural, Mrs. May,” he said. “Jemma only showed me that the supernatural isn’t supernatural at all.”

Jemma grinned. “It’s only science we’ve not yet explained.” She took a spectacularly loud slurp of her soup. May sighed.

“This is foolish,” she said, glaring at her husband. “There is not one aspect of this I am comfortable with. These are our daughters’ lives. They are our children, Phil. Surely, you want them to have every opportunity a young woman should have. Mike, you must talk sense into him.”

But before Coulson or Mike had time to respond, Trip said, “I agree completely, Mrs. May. That’s why I’m here.”

May fixed him with her sharpest stare. Undeterred, Trip continued. 

“A former mentor of mine got word that I’m in the city. He’s having a little bit of a get together tonight. No dancing, just a dinner party. I told him I was with friends from school and he insisted I bring them along. There will be nothing untoward, ma’am. I promise. But I would be honored if you would let Mr. Fitz and I bring your daughters with us. A distraction from more dangerous endeavors.”

Were her mother anyone else, she might have laughed. Instead, May simply raised an eyebrow. “I cannot consent to let my daughters go about with perfect strangers, you understand, Mr. Triplet. Daisy’s not out yet.”

Jemma hazarded a glance at her mother. “I would be delighted, Trip.”

“Jemma—”

“You’re already mad at me, Mother. You’re letting it cloud your judgement.”

There was a clatter as Daisy dropped her spoon, surprised.

“Jemma,” Coulson said warningly. “No one is mad at you, though you seem determined to make them so. Now, Mr. Triplet, if my daughter can get over a petty argument for a moment, who’s party is it? Perhaps, Mrs. May, we know them and can make the appropriate arrangements.”

May sighed, but did not protest.

After a moment of silent awkwardness, Trip said, “An American mentor of mine. A Mr. John Garrett.”

Mike let out a bark of laughter. “Crude little man from Boston?” he asked. 

Coulson grinned. “Married some redheaded Georgia belle after the war?”

Mike snorted and shook his head. “You know she’s all lies. Alabama scalawag, through and through.”

May cleared her throat. “My husband and Mr. Peterson forget themselves. Simone Garrett is a lovely hostess. And from Louisiana.”

Daisy’s face lit up. “You know them, Mama?”

May sighed. “I believe, Mr. Coulson, they sent us our decanter as our wedding present.” She took a deep breath. “I assume you will have no objection to me sending Mrs. Garrett a note?”

Daisy clapped her hands. “Jemma, may I wear your green dress? With the lace?”

Jemma needed only to sense her mother’s presence to know the war that would break out in her sister’s closet once their guests had left. She might as well start preparing now. “I’m afraid I was considering that one.”

* * *

When they arrived at the Garrett’s at four minutes past eight, Jemma, in her black and green lace evening gown, was immediately accosted by a plump, redheaded woman with flowing blue eyes. 

“Jemma!” she exclaimed, kissing her on each cheek. “How much you look like your poor, dear mother.”

“I actually take after my fa—” Jemma began, but Mrs. Garrett had already moved on to the rest of her party.

“I thought she was American,” Fitz muttered, Mrs. Garrett’s lips having left a nearly scandalous mark upon his cheek. 

Jemma laughed and reached up to wipe it off as Daisy, who had only just stopped pouting in her youthful white dress, said, “Yes, but Louisiana does like to forget that they haven’t been French for ninety years.” She looked around and smiled. “I think I’ll sample the punch.”

“Don’t be a dolt. You know mother will find out and blame me.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “Fitz, please distract Jemma. It shouldn’t be too hard given the cut of her dress and you do seem to like her in lace. Trip can accompany me, can’t he?”

Jemma glanced at Fitz. It was a tempting offer. She sighed. “If you get drunk, I’ll kill you.”

With a wink at Jemma, Trip dramatically offered Daisy his arm and led her into the main hall.

“She fancies him,” Jemma said, watching them go.

“How can you tell?”

“She’s being bossy. And keeps commenting on our relationship.”

Fitz blushed. “How are the two related?”

“She’s never once suggested that I love you or you love me. Only that we’ve slept together. She wants Trip to think of her as a woman, not a child.”

Laughing, Fitz said, “He’s too good for that. She’s seventeen.”

“I trust Trip’s nobility completely,” Jemma told him with a smile. “If I thought he had any more intentions with her than indulging her flirtations, I’d hold him off a few more years.”

“Clever girl.”

“It’s why you love me.” Looking around to make sure no one else was watching, Jemma leaned up to kiss Fitz’s cheek. “Perhaps later, after I’ve ensured that Daisy can maintain her reputation for more than ten minutes, I might have to disappear. Get lost in some empty room somewhere.”

He offered her his elbow. “You will be the death of me.”

Grinning, Jemma kissed his cheek again and made her way into the main room. Across the room, Daisy and Trip were engaged in a conversation with two men Jemma had never met before. Daisy was laughing at something that the younger looking of the two said, though his pale face remained expressionless. The older of the two, a Black man taller than anyone Jemma had ever met, even taller than Mike, seemed oblivious to their conversation, looking instead over Jemma’s right shoulder. She discreetly turned her head to see what he was looking at and found herself face to face with a woman with the same sad expression as the man with Daisy.

“Is that your sister?” the woman asked in an accent Jemma couldn’t place.

Placing a hand on Fitz's arm (for he had jumped at the interruption), Jemma nodded. “No one ever assumes so, though.”

“You stand the same.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Elena Rodriguez. The giant there is my companion, Mack.”

Jemma took her hand. “Jemma Coulson. This is Fitz.”

“Pleasure to meet you.” Catching her companion’s—Mack’s attention, Miss Rodriguez shrugged, her expression dejected.

Fitz cleared his throat. “Are you friends of the Garretts’?” he asked. “From…” He trailed off, embarrassed at not being able to finish his sentence.

“Colombia,” Miss Rodriguez supplied kindly. “ I moved to Chicago a year ago. But no.” She gestured to the man who had Daisy so enthralled. “Mr. Ward invited us. He thought that it could be useful.”

“Mr. Ward?” Fitz asked, aware of social niceties, at the same time Jemma, focused on their work, asked “Useful?”

Miss Rodriguez smiled and nodded to where Daisy, Trip, and Mack were standing. A third man stood with them. He was tall and pale with dark, fashionably styled hair, and dark eyes that were focused on Daisy, who was talking animatedly.

“And he thought a dinner party could be useful?” Jemma asked.

Miss Rodriguez did not respond. She had caught Mack’s eyes again and they were clearly engaged in a silent conversation.

“Miss Rodriguez?” Jemma tried again.

She blinked. “Elena, please. I’m sorry. Mr. Ward is a private investigator. He brought us here—to London, I mean. To the party as well.”

“An investigator?” Fitz asked.

Elena nodded, smiling sadly. “Mack’s daughter, Hope. She disappeared two years ago. He’s been helping us track her.”

“I’m terribly sorry.”

“Thank you.”

“How is this party supposed to—”

But before Jemma could finish her question, the lights dimmed around the room. Several partygoers gasped. As she stepped closer to Fitz, she could hear Daisy giggle across the room. Mrs. Garrett stepped into the middle of the room.

“Thank you all for joining us this evening,” she said, clearly a practiced hostess. “We are truly honored by your presence and have in store what we hope to be a lovely surprise!”

Her husband appeared behind her, placing a hand on the small of her back. “Now,” Mr. Garrett said, “If we could have ten brave souls come to the table, we have with us tonight the renowned Madame Raina, here to help us commune with the other world!”

The doors burst open and a woman in a long, rose-print evening gown walked in. It took Jemma a moment to realize that someone had sewn what could only be hedgehog spines to the dress where the rose thorns should have been.

“I feel like thorny is a good omen,” she whispered to Fitz, but before he could respond, Elena muttered, “Excuse me,” and moved towards the table where Mack had already taken his. Jemma raised her eyebrows. Vampires and demons, she had quantifiable evidence for. Empirical data. But communing with the dead? There is where she drew the line.

“Their little girl is missing,” Fitz whispered, as though reading her mind. “You mustn’t spoil their comforts.”

Jemma nodded and focused her attention to where Trip was silently laughing, shaking his head as Daisy clearly tried to get him towards the table. 

“Come, now,” Mr. Garrett exclaimed. “There are still two seats we must fill, mustn’t we, Madame?”

Madame Raina seemed to smile, though Jemma couldn’t be sure.

Across the room, Daisy gasped and stifled a giggle. Jemma turned her attention back to her, shocked to see Mack and Elena’s investigator, this Mr. Ward, leading her to the table, sitting with their backs to them. She swallowed and looked back to Trip. Wordlessly, he began making his way across the room.

“Should I have stopped her?”

Jemma shook her head. “A man can stop Daisy as oil stops a fire,” she said simply. Before she could ponder it further, Madame Raina spoke.

“Ladies,” she said, her voice soft, low, and melodic in a way that simultaneously enthralled Jemma and terrified her. “Remove your gloves. Join hands. Shut your eyes”

As the room fell silent, Madame Raina began murmuring words in a language Jemma could not understand, though, based on the small bits of Latin she heard, she assumed it was made up by the woman in front of her. She fixed her eyes on Daisy, who sat stiffly next to Mr. Ward, across from Mack and Elena. She did not look back at Madame Raina until her words switched rapidly to English. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the theatricality of it.

“Spirits from beyond this world, grace us with your presence. If you are lost, wander not. Join us here and together we shall seek only the most noble truth. We are here. We are—” she cut herself off with a gasp so sudden and genuine sounding, most of the others at the table and around the room jumped.

“There is another among us,” Madame Raina said, her voice filled with mock terror. “Spirit, spirit! Speak to us!”

For a moment, there was only silence. But then, from the table, came a low pained groan. Jemma was about to comment on the impressive ventriloquy of it all when she saw Daisy’s head snap backwards with unnatural force before rolling to the side, her neck cracking loudly. Jemma’s mouth fell open as she seized Fitz’s hand. 

“O stulti et horribilis,” came her sister’s voice, though it wasn’t her voice at all. “Nothi te stultus. Et puto sic et vos cum mortui callidus huic ineptias. Mors autem protinus te satis erit sine misericordia Gentium.”

She giggled low and dark.

Giving Jemma’s hand a quick squeeze, Fitz released her and took a step towards the table, as though he could perhaps calm Daisy. But somehow, Jemma knew deep down that that task was futile. He was only a foot away from her now, but as suddenly as she started, Daisy stopped laughing and slammed the glass-top table so hard it cracked. Fitz froze. 

“Don’t be a fucking fool, Leopold.” Her voice was low, emotionless while simultaneously sounding like it was all a game. A sick joke. She snickered. 

“Leopold. Ugh, I can feel how much you hate it. Leopold. You make her call you Fitz even when she’s fucking you.” Daisy snorted. “Leopold Fitz. Not like there’s a difference. Your mam called you Leopold to be just like me, so you got rid of it. But Fitz is mine, too, Leopold Fitz.”

From where she stood, Jemma could just barely make out Fitz’s terrified whisper of “Father?”

“You didn’t want to be cruel. Like me. But you didn’t even know I died. You think you’re so much better, Leopold Fitz. But you’re no different than any other insatiable cock fucking any other two-penny slut in London. You worthless, idiotic, shit. You can’t get a word out. Are you dumb, boy? Are you going to run? You. Can’t.”

With a gasp, Daisy’s head fell forward. Quickly, Jemma moved to Fitz and grabbed his arm, squeezing it affectionately before stepping forward to assist her sister. But Daisy’s head sprung up again, looking straight forward. 

“Daddy?” This time, her voice was soft and sweet and small and so, so afraid. She let out a whimper. “Daddy?”

“Hope?”

Jemma bit her lip so hard, she drew blood. She hasn’t realized until that moment the look of utter terror of Mr. Mack’s face as he stares unblinkingly at Daisy. 

“Hope?” he repeated. 

Daisy wrapped her arms around herself. “Daddy, I’m cold. I’m scared, Daddy.”

“I’m here, Hope.”

“Daddy! Why won’t you find me, Daddy? Why won’t you—OH!” She began to giggle again, horrifyingly childlike.

“Daddy,” she singsonged. “He’s coming, Daddy.”

“Who’s coming, Hope?”

Without warning, Daisy jumped up on the table. Several people screamed and scrambled away. But Elena and Mr. Mack didn’t move. 

“He’s going to get me, he’s going to get me! Watch out, Daddy! He’s here! He’s here!”

Daisy began to laugh hysterically over the screams around her, her cackle growing deeper with each second as she leaned further and further back until her back was almost perpendicular to her legs. Jemma looked around her in horror and, noticing a heavy-looking vase on a nearby side table, she ran to it, seized it, and, returning to the center of the room, smashed it against her sister’s head.

Immediately, Daisy collapsed on the table. Before Jemma could reach for her pulse, Daisy sat up and stared at her sister.

“Daisy,” Jemma whispered, and watched as her sister’s eyes turned from confused to scared to embarrassed to enraged.

Daisy stood and Jemma immediately extended her hand. Daisy batted it away. 

“Don’t,” she hissed and strode from the room quickly and determinedly, her fury radiating as the crowd parted before her. 

She was gone before Jemma could even blink.

“Miss Coulson?”

She wasn’t sure who said it. It could have been Mrs. Garrett. Or Mr. Garrett. Or Miss Rodriguez. It could have been her own mother. It didn’t matter. Without a goodbye or an attempt to apologize on her sister’s behalf, Jemma marched off in the direction Daisy had gone, picking up her pace as she made it further from the crowd. She was running by the time she was outside, but came to a stop at the estate gates, staring at the empty snowfall around her. She hugged herself, goosebumps forming on her bare arms. She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. It was still bleeding.

“Daisy?” She whispered into the darkness.

“Jemma!”

She spun around. Fitz and Trip were running towards her, all their coats in hand.

“I have to find Daisy.”

Fitz nodded, helping Jemma into her coat. “Could she have gone home?”

“She’s not herself.” She gasped. “Mama!”

Trip took her hand. “I’ve had the coach sent for.”

“She’s only seventeen.”

“I know.”

Jemma burst into tears, falling forward into Fitz’s arms.

“You weren’t there,” she sobbed. “You didn’t...You couldn’t…” She broke off scarcely able to breathe. She was comforted only by Fitz’s hand on her back and the sound of the approaching horse and coach.

“Miss Coulson! Jemma!” Came a call from the front door. But the coach had arrived and Jemma couldn’t be bothered to wait.

They rode back to the Coulson’s in silence, broken only by Jemma’s demands that they go down every alley in search of Daisy. By the time they had made it home, Jemma was sure her sister was lost. She was out of her seat, pushing the door open before the coach had fully stopped and tumbled down into the snow. Her knees stung on impact with the cobblestone, but she only looked up to see her father and Mike running towards her, her mother standing in the doorway. She stood and walked quickly towards the house, her face so determined that both men stopped to let her pass. She thought May might have said her name as she entered, but Jemma did not stop. She half ran up the stairs and into Daisy’s room.

Her sister lay in bed, fast asleep, her face tearstained. She was still in her dress.

Quietly, so as not to wake her, Jemma backed out of the room, nearly knocking into her mother on the landing.

“What happened?”

Jemma shook her head and nodded towards the staircase. May led the way, gesturing for the men to join them in the library.

“What happened?” she demanded again.

“I don’t know,” said Jemma, wringing her hands together.

“What happened, Jemma!”

“ _I don’t know!_ ” Jemma burst into sobs. “I don’t know, Mama. I don’t know!” 

At once, she was in her mother’s arms feeling very childlike but not at all ashamed.

“What happened?” her mother whispered. This time, Jemma was sure, the question was not directed at her.

“There was a...a medium, of sorts,” Trip said quietly. “We didn’t know—I think she only joined because she thought it was a joke.”

“And?”

“The woman was talking bullsh—nonsense. She said someone else was there and we thought it was a joke.”

“Ventriloquist,” Jemma muttered against her mother’s shoulder before lifting her head. “Daisy started moaning, but I thought at first that the medium must be a ventriloquist.”

“What did she say? Daisy?”

For a moment, everyone was silent. Then, staring determinedly at his shoe, Fitz said:

“My father. She said things...things that my father used to say. And…” he trailed off.

Coulson rubbed his face. “You shouldn’t have gone,” he whispered. Then he shouted it. “You shouldn’t have gone!”

Jemma pressed her hand to her mouth, stifling more tears. “I’m sorry, Papa. Mama, I’m sorry, I’m—”

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Without a word, Coulson left the library.

“It is the middle of the—”

“I must speak with Jemma Coulson.”

Jemma pulled away from her mother.

“Elena!”

She ran into the hall to find the other woman pushing past her father.

“Elena, I am sorry! I am so incredibly sorry!”

“We need your help,” she said without preamble. “Please.”

“How did you follow us?”

“I’m fast,” Elena said simply. “Please, Mack and Mr. Ward are on their way.” She turned to Coulson. “Please?”

Confused, Coulson nodded. “Please,” he said, gesturing to the library. “I will...I will send down for some tea and wait for…?”

“Mr. Alphonso Mackenzie and Mr. Grant Ward.”

Coulson nodded.

Jemma took Elena’s arm and led her into the library. “This is Miss Elena Rodriguez. She needs our help.”

“Jemma, what is going on?” May clutched her daughter’s hands.

Before Jemma could respond, the front door opened again and, a moment later, Coulson returned with Ward and Mack, who immediately walked to Elena. Jemma moved to sit between Fitz and Trip on the couch.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Coulson said. “But who are you and why are you in my house?”

Mack cleared his throat. “This girl...Daisy...she may know where to find Hope.”

Coulson scoffed. “I apologize, but my daughter is the queen of pessimism and the empress of doom.”

“Hope is Mr. Mackenzie’s daughter, Papa.”

Coulson swallowed, color rising in his cheeks, but Mack smiled warmly. “An understandable error, sir. And, please, Miss Coulson, ‘Mack’ is fine.”

“So is Jemma.”

“I think we’ve passed the point of introductions,” May said. “Where is your daughter and how did mine become involved?”

Mack nodded as Elena squeezed his hand. “Hope disappeared two years ago. I’ve been searching for her since. Mr. Ward has been investigating her case.”

Everyone immediately turned to look at Mr. Ward, who stood by the large cabinet against the west wall, admiring the china. He smiled and nodded, but gestured back to Mack, who continued. 

“She had been acting strange before. Not herself. She had always been the sweetest girl and suddenly she was so...so cruel. Saying things no one should say and that she had no way of knowing. And then…” He trailed off, his voice breaking. 

“She tried to kill you,” May supplied. 

Mack nodded. “She was so tiny. Eight years old and skinny as a stick. But she could throw me across the room. And then, I must have dozed off one night. I was in the chair in her room—I had to tie her to the bed. But I blinked and she was gone.” 

Coulson walked over and put his hand on the other man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I cannot imagine. Both of our girls and Mr. Peterson’s son were ten. But they never...their bodies never left us.”

“Do you have any leads to where she may have gone?” May asked. 

“Tonight,” Mack said, shaking his head, “was our last...our last hope. We thought it would be foolish to see a medium, but you surely understand my desperation. I talked with your daughter briefly, just to make my introductions around the room, and I said nothing to her about my daughter. But then she was suddenly talking to me and I knew. I knew it was Hope.

May swallowed. “You believe that whatever being has possessed Hope possessed Daisy as well?”

Mack nodded. I don’t know if it was magic or God—”

“Or science,” Jemma couldn’t help but interject.

But Mack nodded. “Or anything. But I know it was her.”

Jemma looked from Mack to her parents to Mike and back to Mack again. She sighed. “My parents and Mike may think me oblivious,” she said, “but they have dedicated their lives to hunting the kinds of beings that I believe are responsible for your daughter’s disappearance. Surely we can be of assistance?”

To her surprise, it was Mr. Ward who responded.

“I think, Miss Coulson, you’ve put your family in an impossible position,” he said, absently plucking a book from her father’s bookshelf.

“Is that so, Mr. Ward?”

“You have asked them to save another man’s daughter at the price of their own.” He put the book back, his eyes flicking to the doorway. “How are you feeling, Daisy?”

Jemma turned her head so quickly it hurt. All eyes in the room followed Mr. Ward’s to find Daisy standing in the doorway, eyes half-shut and chest heaving, still in her rumpled white dress. She looked like a child.

“Daisy,” May said softly, standing up.

Daisy hugged herself, head lolling to the side as her eyes shut fully. She let out a soft noise, halfway between a whimper and a groan, before her head fell backwards and her arms flung out to her sides. Jemma clutched Fitz’s arm as her sister seemed to grow. There was a rustling of clothes as Jemma heard the room stand around her, everyone jumping to their feet in shock. It was only then that she noticed that Daisy’s feet hung three feet above the ground. Then, suddenly, her eyes opened wide and she dropped to the floor.

Time started again as Mack raced towards Daisy, lifting her up easily and bringing her to the couch her parents had just vacated. Jemma watched as May pressed her fingers to Daisy’s neck and Coulson combed her hair back from her face. 

Jemma watched helplessly as the adults crowded around Daisy: her parents and Mike at her head, Mack and Elena by her side, Mr. Ward at her feet. Jemma sat motionless as Trip sat on her other side, holding her hand and whispering across her to Fitz in words she couldn’t make out. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even cry.

But then a soft gasp burst through it all.

“Father,” Daisy whispered.

May let out a shuddering sigh and Coulson said, “I’m here.”

There was a brief girlish giggle that, in any other situation, Jemma would have believed to be her sister. 

Then books and china burst from their shelving, crashing into the opposite walls before pages and shattered glass tumbled to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know any Latin at all and ran this through a translator over two years ago. I don't remember any more what I wanted it to say, but it is not translating back to anything that makes sense.


	5. Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Daisy lost inside her own mind, Jemma, Fitz, and Trip take her to the Coulsons' country home to work on the antiserum. As they do, Jemma is confronted by the past she has long refused to acknowledge.

It was chaos. And something must be truly chaotic for a Londoner to acknowledge it as such. But as tiny, little Daisy Coulson pushed herself off the couch with the force of a god and, with a flick of her wrist sent a writing desk across the room, chaos was the only word to describe it and it had lost all meaning.

In a single, swift movement, Trip and Fitz had thrown themselves to the ground, forcing Jemma down between them. Fitz had curled himself around her and hoped that the thundering of his heart might block Jemma’s ears from the shrieking of her sister. But beneath Fitz’s arm, Jemma watched as her father charged at Daisy and watched as her sister effortlessly knocked him to the ground. She let out a sob of “Daisy” as Fitz clutched her tighter still.

It was either very smart or impossibly foolish. Daisy froze at the cry and for a moment the girl’s own terror took over.

“Jemma,” she said the first time, and Jemma wanted to run to her.

“Jemma,” she said again, and Jemma knew her sister was nowhere to be found. Before anyone could move, Daisy again snarled, “Jemma,” and lunged.

“WHORE!” She grabbed Fitz’s collar and threw him across the room, where he crashed through the glass-top table with a scream. Trip made to cover Jemma, but Daisy was faster.

Jemma sobbed as the girl who was not her sister lifted her by the neck, running her at full speed towards the wall and slamming her against it. When Jemma whimpered, the demon slammed her head against it again.

“Did you think a fuck could save you? Did you think he had some magical cock that could hide you from me? Did you think that any effort to stop me would not be met with a wrath worth of expulsion to the deepest Hell?”

Sobbing was no longer possible as Jemma tried to pry the slender fingers from her neck. The demon slapped her hands away with its free hand, before running its fingers up her cheek and biting down on the cartilage of her ear.

“These eyes are mine,” it scorched against the skin, every breath burning as hot as the Hell it came from. “I’ve missed them.”

There was a horrible sound as Daisy’s grip vanished and she fell to the ground, blood running from her nose. Ward shook out his hand.

“Please tell me you have restraints.”

Jemma let out a choked sob and raised her trembling hands before her. She could not say whether she did so to protect herself or to seek help, but for what felt like a lifetime, she stood there in terror. Then everyone moved at once. Before Jemma could register their movements, May wrapped her tightly in her arms and lowered her to the ground, pressing Jemma’s face into her shoulder and kissing her hair as Coulson and Mike moved to take Daisy off the ground. Across the room, Fitz groaned and Jemma extracted herself enough from her mother’s grip to watch as Trip helped him up. He was bleeding and she needed to go to him, but her legs weren’t working and she could not stand alone.

Ward looked between the two sisters before reaching out to help Jemma and her mother stand. “If only there was some sort of cure,” he said. “A way to save her without pain.”

“Have you seen this before?” Mike asked, cradling Daisy in his arms like an infant.

Ward stared at him, as though he did not fully understand the question. “You should restrain the girl,” he said at last. “She won’t stay unconscious forever. Perhaps some laudanum, or something stronger.” He turned to his clients. “Mr. Mackenzie, we have some serious matters to discuss.”

Mack nodded, holding Elena tightly in one arm and using his other hand to pull a calling card from his pocket. “Our residence,” he said, setting it on an end table that had somehow remained in place. “If we can’t be of use to you right now, we should allow you your privacy.”

Elena nodded. “We can return in the morning, if you would like.”

Jemma felt her mother nod as she pulled her even closer. “It appears, Mr. Mackenzie, as though the fates of our daughters are connected.”

“We’ll return in the morning,” Mr. Ward said. “With all of our research.”

Jemma did not move from her mother’s embrace as their guests left, nor when her father and Mike took Daisy upstairs. It was only when they returned and her father asked, “What now?” that Jemma stood on shaking legs and took in the room around her.

“You’re bleeding!” she cried, stumbling towards Fitz.

“I’m fine,” he whispered. “I’m fine.”

“We should exorcise her,” May said, breaking her long silence, but Jemma, face still buried in Fitz’s neck, shook her head.

“It will come back for her, Mama.”

May’s voice broke. “So I should leave her like that?”

Jemma’s face scrunched up as she tried to withhold her own sobs. She had never heard her mother cry before. She let go of Fitz and moved to take her mother’s hands. “I can help her. An exorcism could help for now, Mama, but I can save her.”

Crying, May cupped Jemma’s face in her hands. “Safe isn’t saved,” she told her. “But I will take you both being safe for as long as I can.”

Jemma leaned into her mother’s touch. “No, Mama. I can  _ save  _ her.”

“How?”

Jemma turned to face her father. “My antiserum,” she said, hoping that she seemed more confident than she felt. For the first time in her life, her scientific confidence seemed to be failing her, but she would rather rot in the fiery depths of Hell than to admit that to her parents or even to herself. “I told you, I’m working on a cure. I just need time.”

“Daisy doesn’t have time.”

“She will. Let me take her to the country house. You stay here, stay in London, find the source. Whatever possesses her is not alone. I can take her away from it, isolate her. And when I cure her, there won’t be anything left to take her again. If we exorcise her, these demons will always be here.” She broke into a sob so violent that both of her parents rushed to hold her and keep her from collapsing completely. She let herself go in the safety of their arms. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

Coulson kissed her forehead. “If you think, for even a moment, I will let you out of my sight—”

“Don’t you trust me?”

Even Jemma herself froze in shock at the ferocity of her words. She tried again, this time shocking herself with her own timidity. “Don’t you trust me, Papa?”

When he did not respond, it was Trip who finally spoke. “I’ve heard about this Madame Raina before,” he said, causing everyone to look at him. “She’s a con.”

“And yet,” Coulson said darkly, “my daughter lies upstairs in chains.”

“So there had to be something else there, something to trigger this.”

May scoffed. “Are you suggesting the Devil is part of London society?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. But I think there is more than one merit to the notion of removing your daughters, both of them, from London. And quietly.”

“We’re not soldiers, Mrs. May,” Fitz said at last. “We’re scientists. We cannot fight these...these monsters here on the streets. But we can work to save those they harm.”

Jemma’s parents squeezed her even tighter.

They sat huddled together on a private carriage on the first train out of London. Trip had a gun in his pocket, Fitz had a decade of Coulson and Mike’s research spread before him, and Jemma had a heavily sedated Daisy in her arms. They were a sight that should have drawn attention, four terrified young people fleeing the greatest city on Earth. But enough money in the right pockets can buy invisibility.

“You’ll send a telegram,” Jemma’s parents begged of her before she left. “The slightest change and you’ll send for us at once.”

Jemma agreed with every intention of keeping that promise.

The country house was a beautiful manor on an estate that had been in the Simmons family for generations, gifted to Mrs. Audrey Coulson  _ née _ Simmons on the occasion of her wedding as a home to raise her children (of which she and her new husband were sure would be many) away from the bustling smogginess of London. Its fenced-in grounds and high hedges should have provided hours of entertainment to the young Miss Simmons during her father’s travels, just as it had to her mother before her. But Jemma herself had none of those happy memories, not the real childhood she had spent in the London residence nor the imaginary one in which her mother had joined her on the sprawling grounds of the country house. No, at twenty years old, Miss Jemma Coulson had only two memories of her mother’s home. The first was ten years before and she did her best not to remember it, for there was nothing but excruciating pain and terror. The other was two years after that when she had met her sister for the first time. Yet neither of those memories were the one that haunted her the most.

“I was so frightened of this place as a child,” she said as the coach approached the front gate. She combed her fingers through Daisy’s hair. “I was afraid it was haunted.”

Fitz squeezed her free hand, but Trip smiled and said, “I’d have thought that most of your fears of haunting came later in life.”

Jemma shook her head. “I heard my father say once that my mother was everywhere in here. It’s odd because, scared as I was, I would always hide in her boudoir. It was the only place here I felt safe.”

Running his thumb over the back of her hand, Fitz said, “Maybe it was her way of keeping you safe?”

“We both know better than that, Fitz. No, I think it was just that it made sense for her presence to be there. Maybe I thought it was better to seek out her spirit than the other way around.”

When they arrived, Jemma generously paid the coachman as Trip carried Daisy into the house. Within the hour, everyone’s trunks were stored away in their rooms and Daisy was restrained in a room down the hall from Jemma’s own. Its walls were a deep blue not of the sky or the shore, but of the deepness of the sea Jemma had never seen, but had only imagined, where it stretches infinitely around you and below you. She had shuddered at the idea of putting her sister there, where there was now feeling but that which she imagined existed at the bottom of the ocean, but she knew it was what her father had asked, that the room was already prepared for such a scenario and had been since Daisy’s last visit.

Nobody had been in the house since that fateful visit seven years ago and Jemma had hoped to never return again. She sat at the yellow ruffled foot of the bed in her room, the room decorated by a mother she had never known, and ran her hands through her hair.

“Is this where the girl Jemma grew up?”

She let herself fall backwards as Fitz shut the door and gestured for him to come and join her.

“Where she was meant to,” Jemma said, wiggling to lay her head in his lap. “I don’t know who that girl would be.”

“Alluring, eventually,” Fitz said with a smile. “Beautiful and brave. Of course, brilliantly intelligent. Maybe a bit promiscuous.”

Jemma laughed as she placed a hand just above his knee. “My mother wanted a girl desperately. A little society lady, like herself. I’m afraid I would be a horrible disappointment.”

Fitz tilted her head up to face him. “That’s not funny, Jemma. No one could be disappointed by you.” 

“It’s kind of you to say so, but I have brainwashed you a bit. What with my allure and charm.” She paused and trailed her hand up his leg. “Perky breasts and a tolerable vagina probably help as well.”

Fitz let out a shout of laughter and pulled her up to kiss her soundly. “There is nothing about you that does not exceed tolerable by leaps and bounds.”

Jemma sat up and squirmed in his lap until her skirts were bunched up around her waist and she could wrap her legs around him. “You should have been a poet. Leaps and bounds from tolerable.”

She bent her head to kiss him, rocking her hips languidly against his as she tangled her fingers in his curls. She pressed her tongue into his mouth, moaning when first he pressed his teeth gently against it and then sucked softly, all the while moving his hands up her thighs to the laces connecting her drawers. She pressed her hands to his chest, leaning back, and he whimpered as her lips left his.

“Trip?”

Fitz cocked his head to the side. “No, dear, I’m Fitz.”

Jemma shoved him playfully. “No, where is he? Will he come looking for us?”

“No, he said he’d take first watch with Daisy. That we should rest and one of us can take over in an hour or two.”

“He said we should rest?”

Fitz grinned. “Well, that’s what he technically said. I don’t think his meaning was quite so literal.”

“Thank god,” Jemma said and immediately began undoing the buttons on her top.

After several minutes of clothing removal of that certain type of awkwardness in which there is nothing not awkward save for how at ease the participants are, Fitz wrapped his hand around the back of her head and lowered her slowly down onto the bed. For a while, all she could think about was, despite it all, how very lucky she was. How she had seen every darkness this world had to offer, in this world and beyond, how she had been encompassed by it, and still he loved her. He was so good and kind and loving and deserved someone whole and good and untouched by souch darkness. And, yet, there he was, loving her. She didn’t know what to do but love him.

It was the last coherent thought she had for quite some time.

_ They are in the back corner of the library and she can hardly breathe as Fitz rounds on her. _

_ “Where’s your proof of demons?!” _

_ She stands up, pushing herself off the table with such force that Fitz takes a step back. “Right fucking here. You want proof, Fitz? Here I stand.” _

_ She stares at him and he stares back and there should be more said between them, but all she hears herself say is: “I was ten,” she whispered. “We all were.” _

_ They are in a small room, sparsely furnished: a bed in one corner, a washbasin across from it, a small writing desk, and a rather old looking wardrobe. Clothes and books are strewn everywhere, covering even what seemed to be a brightly colored quilt. They are sitting on his bed and it’s shocking that there’s room for both of them. She’s leaning into the hand on her cheek but then she breathes and he takes it away. She cries for him to put it back and she can hear her voice spilling uncontrollably from her lips.  _

_ “My mother died when I was a baby. I suppose I have to start back then. My father was an explorer. Africa, South America, Asia—I think he made it everywhere. He stopped that when I was young, though. My father wanted to see the world, to see the multitude of cultures it contains. He had no desire or intention to participate in their Anglicization. So he came back to my mother, but she died. She had quite an inheritance, though, and my father wrote books of his travels, and he raised me himself. He promised he’d never leave me. Sometimes I think he stopped travelling because of that, too. He’s American and my mother was English, so I think he wanted me to be here to be closer to her. But when I was still young, seven or eight, maybe, I woke up one morning and he was gone. My governess said he’d gone back to New York and would send for me soon. But weeks and weeks passed and I was so scared he didn’t want me anymore. It was a bit foolish, but what child doesn’t fear losing her father’s love? _

_ “A friend of his, Mike, the one who lives with us now, his son had been sick. Prone to bouts of violence and hysteria. Talking to people who weren’t there. Talking as though he were someone else. And then, every so often he would remember who he was and be so, so terrified. But then it would take him over again.” _

_ “Who?” _

_ “The devil. A devil, maybe. I don’t really know. After a little bit more than a month, they all came back to me. Father thought that going to our country house might help him. But the journey was too much. He died. _

_ “But then when I was ten, I...got sick. I don’t remember much from then. A couple of times, I think, I was suddenly somewhere I shouldn’t have been. And I was hurt. And once, I remember waking up in bed and Father was sitting there and he was bleeding so terribly from this scratch on his face and wouldn’t tell me what happened and I tried to sit up, but couldn’t. And then nothing. I learned later, of course, that they’d restrained me. And I suppose at one point, one of them remembered saying it could have been a demon. They tried to appease it, to ignore it, to threaten it. I suppose it wanted something from them. But nothing worked and one day, I was so far gone from myself, they saw no choice but to perform an exorcism.” _

_ He says her name and it is the first time she remembers wanting to kiss him. _

_ “I remember a lot of pain. I remember my mother. I don’t even think I told Father that. But I’ve been fine ever since. Just careful. I don’t know what could cause it to return, but I won’t risk it.” _

_ “Of course.” Fitz pauses for a moment, stroking her hand with his thumb. “Simmons?” _

_ She nods against his shoulder in acknowledgement.  _

_ “You said all of you. Not ‘we both were.’ You said ‘we all were.’” _

_ “That’s how my parents met. My father and my step-mother—although she’s the only mother I’ve ever known. Daisy’s her daughter from before us. It was just by coincidence that their paths crossed. Father helped her save Daisy. We all but lived together for over a year before Father realized he was ruining Mother’s reputation and married her. They say all that’s behind them now, but I grew up in a home with more demonology books than anything else. And I believe my parents still care deeply about finding these demons and destroying them. I think they live in fear that Daisy or I will fall victim again.” _

_ Her eyes are open in the morning light and she is in his arms. She knows she should leave, but she wants to stay in the warmth. But everything is wrong. _

_ She’s in her nightgown and the fingers gripping her arm are cold and unrelenting and she will give into them if it means being free. There’s someone else who should be there instead. Someone warmer. _

_ Far away, a girl screams out for her father and she cannot help but remember a girl who might have been her sister. Of course, they were all her sister at one point. There’s a serenity to this. A homecoming. _

_ A baby cries out in her arms, snuggled in the bed with her. She holds the child to her, no longer caring about the cold fingers on her arms, and stokes the baby’s fat cheek. It looks at her with piercing blue eyes and she is terrified. _

* * *

“Are you sure you’re meant to be in here?”

Jemma blinked. Daisy lay there, tied to the bed posts, staring at her quizzically as though Jemma belonged in that horribly blue room any less than she did. Jemma narrowed her eyes.

“Are you?”

“I’m always where I’m meant to be. She fancies him, did you know?” Daisy, though she wasn’t much Daisy at all, nodded towards where Trip had dozed off in a chair by the door. “He’s funny. And has such a nice smile.”

Jemma nervously cracked her knuckles. She was leaning against the door of Daisy’s room in her dressing gown, her hair mussed and loose down her back. It wasn’t her turn to take the watch yet and the demon within her sister knew it. She wanted to ask, “Why did you bring me here?” silly as it was, for she had clearly arrived on her own two legs. So, instead, she asked:

“Why Daisy?”

“Did you ever think that maybe you shouldn’t have fucked him?”

Jemma swallowed, determined to ignore her. “Why can’t you go back to the Hell you came from?”

She clicked her tongue several times, tilting her sister’s head as she looked at Jemma through her sister’s eyes. “Must you be so cruel?” 

Without warning, she began to sob with such earnestness that Trip was startled awake. He stared at the wailing demon and said in an undertone, “Jemma, go back to bed.”

“No! Please! Jemma, don’t leave me! Jemmie, please!” She was writhing in the bed, wailing as she tried desperately to free her wrists and ankles from her restraints. She looked half mad, thrashing about in her nightgown, her long brown hair knotted around her as she screamed.

Trip jumped up and grabbed Jemma’s arm, just as much for her comfort as for his own, and a breath against Jemma’s neck and another hand on her waist told her that Fitz had joined them.

“I just sedated her,” Trip whispered, as though lowering his tone would mask his fear. He glanced up at the clock. “Just fifteen minutes ago.”

The three watched in terror as Daisy continued to thrash (and Jemma was inexplicably sure that, this time, it was Daisy, and she was all the more miserable for that) until she seemed to have exhausted herself and, continuing to cry, finally stilled.

“I’m so afraid, Jemma,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to die alone.”

Jemma couldn’t take it any longer. Breaking away from Fitz and Trip, she ran to the bed and hugged Daisy tight. Without hesitation, Daisy melted against her, sobbing at the relief of another person’s warmth. Jemma kissed the top of her sister’s head and told her in a soft voice, “I won’t let you die. Do you understand me? I won’t allow it.”

Unable to hug her sister, Daisy pressed her chin into Jemma’s shoulder. “I know.” After several minutes longer of Jemma rubbing her back, Daisy pulled back. “You never answered my question,” she said, still sniffling. “Do you regret it?”

Jemma stroked her cheek. “Regret what?”

Daisy dropped her voice. “Fucking the Scottish bastard.” When Jemma didn’t respond, Daisy raised her voice enough that Jemma couldn’t even pretend only she could hear it and continued without breaking eye contact. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Yes, he strikes me as the type to be just utterly submissive to your needs. Is that why Trip had the first watch of me? So that Fitz could eat your cunt? That. Was. A. Mistake. I hope it was worth it.”

“Daisy…” Jemma was almost as embarrassed by the desperation in her voice as she was by the way she began slowly backing away from her sister. But Daisy didn’t seem to notice or care and looked, instead, at where Trip was inching his way from the door, ready to grab Jemma and pull her away at a moment’s notice.

“If the roles were reversed, Mr. Triplett, would you have done the same?”

“Would I...what?” he sputtered. 

Daisy leaned back against her pillows, smiling almost seductively as her nightgown slipped off one shoulder. “If sweet and lovely Jemma weren’t quite right in the head, would you be in here, licking me?”

“I’ve got a feeling you’ve already decided the answer.”

Daisy let out a shriek, jerking on the bed and biting at where her sister had been only a moment before.

“Go!” Trip hissed, shoving a shaking Jemma into Fitz’s arms. “I’ve got this. Fitz, get her out of the house!” He pushed them out the door and slammed it shut

“She loves you enough to fall for your shit,” Jemma heard him shout. “But you don’t scare me, so shut the fuck up and stop trying!”

“It should be her! IT SHOULD BE HER! GET ME OUT! JEMMA, GET ME OUT!”

Choking out a sob, Jemma pulled herself from Fitz’s arms and raced down the main stairs and out the front door. The air was cold and sharp and the whole world was gray and Jemma ran. She ran through the garden, past the weeds and dead things that should have, like her, grown in this place, and ran until there was nowhere to go but down. She stood, heaving, in the overgrown grass that cut off sharply, dropping down to the sand and freezing sea. She was still only in her nightgown.

“Jemma!” The very sound of his voice seemed to warm the air. “Jemma! Are you out there?”

She breathed his name into the air, first as soft as summer and then, when her body allowed her, loud enough for it to float upon those harsh December currents. She called and called until she was wrapped first in the green wool coat and then in Fitz’s arms.

“I have brought nothing but misery to this place,” she sobbed against his chest. “I destroy everything.”

“Jemma—”

“I’m a curse and this place...I have brought Hell wherever I am.”

“That’s not true!”

“I killed my mother here!” The words left her lips like a sheet of ice and shattered just as violently in the cold around them. Her knees gave out with such force that she slipped from his arms and landed helplessly against the ground and whispers against the grass, “I have been damned from my first breath.”

Fitz too dropped to the ground and clutched her hands tightly in his own. “That’s not true!” He pulled her close and buried his face in her hair. “My Jemma is too smart to believe in curses.”

“Then she is a fool.”

“No.”

She shook her head against his chest. “I know the Devil too well to be naive enough of his tricks. I’ve known the darkness too well to be played as a fool.”

Fitz rubbed circles into her back, pressing his lips to her head. He thought, perhaps, if he squeezed her just hard enough, he could absorb all of her pain. “Do you love me?” he asked, and it was one of the few times in the history of love in which that question was asked for truly selfless reasons.

“More than I ever knew I could.”

“If you love me and I love you—and you know how much I do—what is your evidence? How can someone who inspires so much love and joy and happiness be cursed?”

“How can a child, as her very first act, murder her mother?”

Fitz pulled away, grasping Jemma’s arms firmly in his hands as a wave crashed upon the shore. “Her death is not on you,” he said, but Jemma shook her head.

“He couldn’t look at this place, couldn’t look at me. When we were here, I was nothing to him.  _ Nothing _ . I don’t know what it is Fitz, I don’t. But it’s always been here at this place, with me. It killed my mother and it will take from me everything I love.”

“I won’t let it!” Fitz released her arms and moved his hands instead to either side of her face. “I promise you, Jemma, it will not take me from you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, begging the tears to stop, and asked, “How can you be sure? And don’t...don’t say you’ll marry me.”

Fitz laughed and kissed her forehead. “Your antiserum, maybe. That doesn’t matter right now. We’ll figure this out, Jemma. Together.”

She believed him.

After that, it remained unspoken between the three people in the house (or the three, at least, whose bodies were vessels only to their own minds) that watching Daisy was Trip and Fitz’s job. Jemma allowed herself to remain confined to the kitchen, which she and Fitz had altered to function as their lab. Each morning, Trip would take a small sample of blood from his charge. (Or, at least, every morning when she was already bleeding. The few days she hadn’t managed to injure herself in her hysteria, Jemma had braved the blue room and pricked her skin herself.) Then, she would work, ordering Fitz around whether or not he was there, and, come tea time, she would add some of that morning’s work to her sister’s blood sample and pray that nothing would happen.

Every day, the blood turned black.

_ She’s sitting on the beach and happier than she’s ever been. She loves the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. They both do. The child is in a white dress, just like her own, and running around in the sand on chubby legs. There’s no sun to be seen against the clouds, but they don’t care. The child runs and falls and laughs as though nothing could be more comical. When she stands to walk over and help the little thing up, she’s not there. She is screaming the child’s name again and again as the waves hit her legs harder and harder. She tries to get louder, but she can’t. No matter how much her muscles insist on screaming, there’s nothing but wind until, _

_ “Mother!” _

_ When she turns, the little girl is staring at her, arms outstretched, with black eyes. _

_ She tries to tell Fitz they have to go back, that they have to save the little girl, but the chatter of the party was too loud, and the ocean was miles and miles away, and no one seemed to hear her. _

_ Through the din, she can hear only her sister, laughing at a joke someone has told. Mack stands on her left, Ward across from her, and Trip on her right where he holds her arm. Mack stares into the distance, Trip stares at Daisy. And Ward is staring over Daisy’s head, right at Jemma. _

_ “Help me,” she tries to ask. She keeps trying and keeps failing and, when she finally turns to Fitz again, it is night and he screams for her to run. _

_ “Go, Jemma! Go now!” _

_ She has her syringe in one hand and can hear Fitz breathing hard behind her, but where is Trip? _

_ She keeps running and running and trying to scream and stops at the shore near her mother’s grave and looks out over the sea. The small child grabs her hand with her own sticky, fat fingers and sticks the other the thumb in her mouth, watching the sea with her burning eyes. _

_ Daisy screams and screams and screams and a man with dark hair crouches over her in the blue room and Jemma swears that she will do anything. When the demon stands tall and slender before her, his black eyes millimeters from Jemma’s own, Jemma promises Daisy she’ll be safe. _

She was aware of nothing except that she was crying as she stood in the doorway of the library, trembling under Trip and Fitz’s concerned, unblinking eyes.

“Are you alright?” The terror in Trip’s voice was almost frightening. “We thought we heard breaking glass when she was screaming?”

It had been three weeks and Daisy’s screams had become as accepted as the crash of the sea. It was as though this was the way things had always been. Jemma wrapped her arms around herself. Everything inside her ached and burned and felt as though it was clawing out of her from the inside. She forced her eyes to stay open and turned to Trip. “You didn’t need to be here. Why would you ever involve yourself with this?”

“Jemma, I—”

She broke into a sob and, for the first time in her life, cried out, “I don’t understand!”

When she opened her eyes again, she was laid out on the chaise. Fitz sat at her feet, rubbing them as he looked at her with concern. Trip knelt on the floor beside her, dabbing her face with a cool towel. 

“Welcome back,” Trip said with a smile. “You had us worried for a minute.”

She looked back to Fitz, who said, “You fainted. And no wonder. When did you last eat?”

Jemma shook her head. She was supposed to warn them of something, she was sure of it. She had been coming in to warn Fitz, but now she couldn’t remember anything but having gone upstairs to try and rest. Feeling like a child, she began to cry. Fitz and Trip glanced at each other in concern, but before they could say anything, there was a cry of, “Jemma!” and Daisy raced across the room in only her nightgown and threw herself into Jemma’s arms. She was bleeding above her left eye. For a moment, the boys looked on in shock. Then very slowly, Trip reached for his holster. Daisy screamed.

“Please don’t hurt her!”

Trip froze, but did not move his hand back away. “How the hell did you get down here?”

Daisy looked between him and her sister, who was still lying down and could barely comprehend if she was dreaming or awake.

“I don’t know,” Daisy said, sounding like a child as she struggled to breathe enough to form words, her eyes focused in terror at the gun in Trip’s hand. “I woke up and I don’t know where we are and someone was climbing through my window and Jemma came in and it ran away and I don’t know where I am and I want my mama.”

She was sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. “I want my mama. Jemma, I want Mama.”

Trip raised his hands first above his head, as though in surrender, and then, slowly, reached forward and cupped Daisy’s cheeks.

“Daisy, Daisy, look at me. Focus on me, okay?”

It was hard to tell if Daisy was nodding or shaking. Jemma, finally coming to her senses, sat up and held Daisy’s arm tight. She didn’t know how, but she knew that this was her sister.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

Daisy hugged herself, staring at Trip. “I don’t know where I am.”

Jemma rested her chin on Daisy’s shoulder and kissed her wet cheek. “We’re at the country house,” she said softly. “We met here, remember?”

“I don’t remember coming here.”

Trip moved his hands to grab Daisy’s own. “What do you remember?”

“I remember the party, we went to a party,” she whimpered. “And there was a girl in a flowered dress and...and…” She let out a little gasp and fell silent.

Tri squeezed her hands. “Daisy.”

“What do you remember, Daisy?” Fitz asked, reaching out and rubbing her back.

“She’s lost to us,” Daisy whispered, “but I know where she is.”

“Who, darling?”

Daisy turned to Jemma, tears in her eyes.

“I know where to find Hope.”


	6. Part V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma, Fitz, Daisy, and Trip return to London in search of Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the tags! A lot of the warnings are due to this chapter.

The trip back to London was uneventful despite the palpable fear radiating from their car. Trip had elected to sit beside Daisy as a heroic safety measure and, despite her own confusion and nerves, Daisy had fallen asleep against him as soon as the train left the station and did not wake until her Mike had lifted her from the seat in London and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. 

“You look unwell,” Coulson told his older daughter as he helped her off the train. 

But Jemma said nothing and followed him to their coach. 

In the three weeks of their absence, London had grown impossibly colder. The sea has been freezing, there was no doubt about that. But the London chill was deeper and more bitter. While the sea breeze had caused her to frequently retreat indoors and bundle under every blanket she could find (or, if we are being honest, within Fitz’s arms), the London air somehow froze her from the inside out and no number of blankets or coats would save her. 

Still, there was no comfort like that of her parents’ sitting room. She sat on the sofa, her legs curled beneath her as she leaned against her mother’s left shoulder, with Daisy claiming her right. 

“Thank you,” May was saying to Trip and Fitz, “for our daughters.”

“I would hope anyone else would do the same, Mrs. May,” Trip said, and Fitz nodded. 

May turned her head to kiss Daisy’s hair. “I’ve missed you, darling.”

“I’m sorry, Mama.”

May opened her mouth to tell Daisy there was nothing to be sorry for, but was interrupted by the shriek of the doorbell. 

“Ignore it,” she commanded instead, causing both Mike and her husband to freeze where they were in the entrance way. “Can we not have a moment of peace with our children?”

“He’s been so concerned—“

“With his purse.”

“Melinda, don’t be unkind.”

“Who is it, Mama?” Jemma asked. It was the first thing she had said other than “Mama” since walking in the front door. 

“Mr. Ward,” she said, making it quite clear in her tone that Mr. Ward has become something of a frustration in the previous weeks. 

“He’s taken a...substantial interest in Daisy’s welfare,” Coulson explained. “I will tell him to come back tomorrow.”

“No!”

Everyone turned to look at Daisy, who had straightened up and looked at her parents imploringly. 

“I must speak with him,” she continued. “I have a message for Mr. Mackenzie.”

The next morning, everyone gathered in the Coulson’s sitting room around a platter of coffee cake and tea only Daisy had touched. Mack had embraced her upon his arrival, an act that under any other circumstances would have been horribly inappropriate. Horrible circumstances always seem to have that ability to alleviate the horribleness of a break of social niceties. 

“I’m sorry,” Daisy said when Mack released her, clasping his hands. “I told Mr. Ward—she’s lost to us. I can feel it. But I know where she is.”

Mack smiled sadly and it was evident to everyone in the room that he had not slept the night before. “I just want her back,” he said. “Whatever of her I can get.”

“We will try to save whatever of her we can,” Jemma told him. She was sitting again on the love seat with Fitz and, having given up all notions of propriety, leaned back against him. She had, after all, been forced to pass the night without him. The least her parents could do was allow her the small comfort of his proximity. 

Daisy shook her head. “Please, Jemma.”

And Mack turned to her, his eyes distraught and pleading, and added, “Please do not give me hope.” His voice cracked as he inadvertently uttered his lost daughter’s name. Elena squeezed his arm.

“We should go now,” she said. “We don’t know how long it will take and I think we would all feel safer if our entire mission was complete by nightfall. Just tell us where, Daisy, and we’ll allow you back to your life.”

Pursing her lips in confusion, Daisy looked between Elena and her parents. “I’m coming with you. Aren’t I, Mama? Papa?”

May and Coulson glances at each other. 

“We all want you to be safe, Daisy,” Mike said, smiling at her. 

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t want me to get sick again.”

“No,” May said firmly. “We don’t. You and Jemma will stay home.”

At her name, Jemma sat straight up. “I will do no such thing.”

To her frustration, Mack seemed to agree with her mother and said, “There is no need for needless risks. Stay here, please.”

“Mr. Mackenzie—Mack—I appreciate your concern, but—”

“There are no ‘buts,’ Jemma.” Her father’s voice was as strong as she had ever heard it. “You are my child and you will stay here.”

Jemma breathed in sharply through her nose and clutched Fitz’s hand. This was absurd! She was a woman, not some child. And it had been her, after all, who had brought about the convergence of all of these people. Fitz squeezed her hand back and a wondrous thought occurred to her. 

“Did you mean it?” she asked him softly, turning to face him. “Did you mean what you said on our first night in London?’

Fitz cocked his head, as though trying to figure out what it was she was asking of him. When he realized what she meant, however, he let out a soft sigh and, though still confused, nodded. “I did,” he said. “I do.”

Jema turned back to her parents, feeling defiant. “I will go with you,” she told them. “Or I will elope tonight and be his wife rather than your daughter.”

Behind her, Fitz tensed, his hand falling from her own. May rubbed her face, Coulson squeezed his eyes shut, and Mike bowed his head with a soft, “Oh, Jemma.” But Jemma continued to stare at her parents, choosing oblivion rather than acknowledging the discomfort she had just brought into the room. Fortunately for her own shame, Daisy broke the silence.

“Unfortunately, Jemma, your nuptials are irrelevant. I can’t say for certain where we can find Hope. I’ll...I’ll know my way there and I’ll know it when we’re there. It’s just ...Well, it’s just that I know how to find Hope, but I can’t tell you. I don’t know how to say.”

“I could accuse you of lying and send you to your room.”

Daisy smiled sadly at her father. “You could. But you won’t.”

Fitz stood without a glance at Jemma. “We should go,” he said. “Like Elena said, the sooner the better.” And he went to get his coat.

Jemma leaned forward and called his name, though she thought better of reaching out for him. Regardless, he didn’t turn back. Even when the rest had gathered their coats and ventured into the January chill, Fitz walked ahead, falling into conversation with Coulson and Mack while Jemma walked behind with her mother. 

“I don’t understand,” she said in an undertone, clutching May’s arm. “We’re all working together to fight this—why is everyone being so cold?”

May shocked her, then, by stopping and turning Jemma to face her. She kissed her forehead. “My poor girl,” she said, “I hope no one ever breaks your heart as you have Mr. Fitz’s.”

Jemma shook her head. “Mama, I don’t under—”

“Jemma, you are too smart to play the fool. When Mr. Fitz asked to marry you, I do believe he hoped your acquiescence would be based upon your love for him, not your desire to spite your parents.”

Jemma blinked several times, her breath rapidly accelerating as she processed her mother’s words. Tears welled in her eyes. “Mama…”

May grabbed her by the arms. “Hush now. It is not the time. You will wait until we’re home and you will learn from your mistakes. But now we have a child to find.”

“No,” Jemma said, shaking her head and reaching into her pocket. She pulled out a small syringe and held it out for her mother to see. “I am going to save her.”

“Jemma...You heard your sister—”

“I can save her, Mama. You’ll see. I’ll save her.”

With that, she turned and went to catch up with the rest of their companions. She did not stop nor slow until she had reached Daisy at the front, where she stood with Trip and Ward. They walked in silence save for Daisy’s quiet utterance of directions until she stopped them right outside of St. Bartholomew the Great’s. 

“Daisy,” Coulson said softly, coming to a stop behind them. “Is this it? The church?”

Daisy took a shaky breath. “Around the back. We need to go below!” She said the final words as though she had just had an idea so miraculous she couldn’t contain herself and began running around back. Kneeling by what seemed to be an old cellar door, she held out her hands to the chain around it. Suddenly, the chain began to shake and, after a moment, split open completely. She stared at her trembling hands and Jemma knew she was wondering if this act was a sin or miracle. 

Ward knelt down and, wrapping one arm around Daisy, used the other to open the door. The stairs stretched out dark before them, but they had come prepared. Lighting a lantern, Coulson took Daisy from Ward and the two of them led the way into the darkness. 

It was damp and dank and impossibly colder than London above and Jemma knew not what creatures lurked below. She lifted her skirt as she walked, determined to be brave, but she very desperately wanted to take Fitz’s hand. She knew his gait and knew he was right behind her. It would be easy if she had not just gone and ruined it all. She bit down hard on the inside of her lip—she would not cry, not now. She would save Hope and he would understand. All would be well in the end. 

The stairs dropped them in a large rotunda with a wet floor and tunnels going off in all directions. The smell was so horrible that Jemma had to wrap her scarf around her mouth and nose to keep from gagging. 

“It’s a sewer,” Elena gasped out, her own coat pulled over her mouth. “We’re in the sewer.”

Mack shook his head. “Where’s my girl?”

“I don’t know,” Daisy said, her voice trembling. “She should be here. She should be...I know she was here. I know it, I know it.”

“Don’t worry,” Trip said, his voice calm and comforting as he held Daisy’s hand. “We’ll figure it out. We can split up, look around the tunnels.”

Coulson nodded. “We have no other choice. Mr. Mackenzie, I assume you will go with Miss Rodriguez? Yes? Daisy, you stay with Uncle Mike, so you understand me? You do not leave his side.”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Very well. Jemma…”

“I’ll go with Mr. Ward.” The words were out of her mouth before she could fully process them and everyone, Jemma included, pauses in shock. It made the most sense, she supposed. She couldn’t bear to face anyone who might try to discuss the utter fool she had made of herself over her indecent response to Fitz’s proposal. The only thing worse than her mother’s steely disappointment would be Trip’s attempt to convince her all was well. No, Ward would be a very good companion. And able to defend himself—her parents couldn’t complain. All she had to do was continue to avoid eye contact with Fitz. 

“Jemma will be with Mr. Ward,” her father finally echoed. 

“Mr. Fitz will be with me.” May’s voice left no room for argument and Jemma cursed internally. That might be the only thing worse than her being with her mother. 

“Then that leaves Mr. Triplett and myself. Very well. Does every pairing have a gun and someone who can use it? We’ll meet back here in two hours time. Should anyone meet trouble, fire upon it. This is the rendezvous point. If there’s trouble, we come back here.”

Everybody seemed unable to speak and nodded their agreement with the plan. Jemma kissed her family and stared at Fitz. She reached out her hand, somewhat pathetically, and he took it. 

“Come back to me,” she begged of him. 

Fitz nodded. “I’ll see you soon, Jemma.” And he turned and left with her mother.

Mr. Ward held out his elbow for Jemma to take and she let him lead her to the mouth of one of those dark, endless tunnels. He handed her a small lantern, which she took and held before her.

“I don’t know what’s down here,” she told him quietly, silently adding,  _ but I’m afraid. _

“If we are lucky,” Mr. Ward said as he began walking into the darkness, “there will be nothing.”

“Don’t say that! We’ll find Hope.”

Chuckling sadly as the voices of their companions disappeared into nothingness. “She inspires it, doesn’t she? The little girl Hope and all these pitiful adults scouring the globe to find whatever’s left.”

“Aren’t you in the employ of Mr. Mackenzie?” she asked. “Surely you can’t be so cynical.”

“I—watch for the ledge here—I admire you, Miss Coulson. From the moment I met you. Your boldness at Mr. Garrett’s party, your determination to help those around you. I heard about your antiserum. Miss Coulson, you are a formidable woman and the Devil should fear you.”

Jemma glanced up at him, not caring as her boots and skirt dragged through puddles of a substance she did not want to think about. She had hardly spoken more than a few words to Mr. Ward before today. He had been quiet in their few previous meetings, observing instead the scene around him. But when he spoke, foolish as it was, she could see why her sister had looked so enraptured by their conversation.

“You flatter me, Mr. Ward, but I seek neither glory nor gratitude nor salvation.”

“You think you’re past saving?”

Jemma laughed cooly, though not unkindly. “If you knew me, you wouldn’t ask that. I believe there’s a devil and I hope that means there’s a god, but salvation? I know the devil, Mr. Ward. I’ve seen his darkness and there is no light. The only Hell is on this earth or at least I hope it is.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’ve sinned, Mr. Ward. All my life. My very first act was to kill my mother. I’ve lied, I’ve dishonored my father. I’ve loved Mr. Fitz. If there’s a Heaven, I don’t think I’ll be well-received, so I’d much prefer it if this world is the only one. I fear my life has been damned—I can only hope to escape it in death.”

Mr. Ward made a soft, unreadable sound and seemed about to say more when there was a shuffling in the darkness ahead of them, just outside the reach of their lantern. 

“Behind me, Jemma, quick!”

She didn’t try to fight him, moving swiftly behind him while still holding the lantern over his shoulder. Together, they inched forward. 

Slowly, the light engulfed the creature before them. Tall and terrible, a woman in white stared at them with hateful red eyes. Jemma gasped. The more she saw these creatures, the more she feared them. The creature snarled as Ward continued to inch forward, one hand curling around his pistol. 

“Between the eyes,” Jemma whispered as the tunnel trembled with a cold and impossible wind. “You have to hit her between the eyes.”

Ward nodded, pulling the pistol from inside his coat, but as he did so, the snarling stopped and the creature cocked her hateful head and turned to walk away. Without speaking and as one, Ward and Jemma began to follow her. As they did, Jemma noticed a soft voice growing louder in the darkness.

_ “Row, row, row your boat, _

_ Gently down the stream. _

_ Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily _

_ Life is but a dream.” _

“Hope?” Jemma whispered. She heard Ward swallow audibly.

_ “Row, row, row your boat, _

_ Gently down the stream. _

_ If you see a crocodile, _

_ Don’t forget to scream.” _

“Hope!” Ward called, louder than Jemma had. Before them, the lady in white turned a corner.

_ “Row, row, row your boat, _

_ Gently down the stream. _

_ Try to make it back to shore _

_ Before your boat sinks.” _

They picked up their pace, nearly running as the child’s voice grew louder and louder. They passed the corner the creature had rounded and froze. Jemma thought she might be sick.

The creature had joined dozens and dozens of others like her in a cavern lit by candles that couldn’t possibly be enough to provide the red glow they had stumbled into. Each creature, identical from their tangled blond hair to their gaunt and dead faces to their tattered white dresses, stood pressed around the walls, each with just one red eye focused on where Jemma and Ward had just entered. The other eye of each creature looked toward the center of the room, where a young Black girl, no more than six years old, lay on the ground and stared up at the ceiling, tapping her toes as she sang:

_ “Row, row, row your boat, _

_ Gently down Death Stream.” _

“Hope!”

_ “You better watch out for people with guns, _

_ Or life is down the drain.” _

She sat up suddenly and stared right at Jemma and Ward. “Gun,” she said simply. “I don’t like guns.”

Jemma fisted the syringe in her pocket and moved in front of Ward. “I don’t like guns, either, Hope. I just want to help you.”

Hope cocked her head to one side. “Help?”

“Your daddy’s here.”

“Mine?” To Jemma’s surprise, Hope’s voice began to tremble and tears welled in her eyes. “My daddy?”

Jemma nodded. “Yes, yours, Hope Mackenzie. I just want to take you home to him.”

“LIAR!” Hope jumped, her body wracked with sobs. “Liar, you always lie!”

“I’m not lying, Hope.” Jemma took a tentative step forward and slowly pulled the syringe from her pocket as her own voice began to break. “I’m not. No guns, Hope, I promise. Just medicine.”

“You lie! Family doesn’t lie!”

“I’m not lying, Hope! I just want to take you back to your daddy.”

“You’re wrong!” Impossibly quickly, Hope’s tears stopped in red eyes. She smiled and laughed a deep laugh that could not possibly come from her body. And then, in a breathy voice no child should be able to replicate, whispered, “Father!”

And she ran at them. Jemma held up her syringe, determined to best the child in a physical altercation. But just before she was in arms’ reach, a loud sound broke through Jemma’s fear and Hope crashed forward, weightless in her arms. The child stared up at her with blank brown eyes.

“You killed her,” Jemma whispered, her voice and soul breaking as she cradled the child.

“She was going to kill  _ you _ .”

“I could have stopped her. I could have saved her.”

“I didn’t...I didn’t have a choice. I—” Ward’s voice was swallowed as rumble broke through the room. “Miss Simmons, we have to go.”

“Mack…”

Ward swooped down around her and scooped Hope into his arms. “Simmons, RUN!” He grabbed her by the arm and took off. 

Jemma stumbles along behind him, tears burning in her eyes. 

Hope was dead and, though Ward had shot her, she was dead long ago. Jemma couldn’t believe it. She was supposed to save her. She had been working on her antiserum for weeks, it could have worked. She let out a sob and realized her syringe was no longer in her hand. She was about to tell Ward that she had to go back, that they could still save Hope, but a terrible shriek was growing closer, followed by the thundering of dozens of feet. 

She was going to die.

Sobbing, she ran, ducking as Ward fired over his shoulder. She ran as she had never ran in her life. When they reentered the rotunda where they had separated from the others several lifetimes before, Jemma collapsed. On all fours, she vomited into the dirt. The world crumbled as Ward shot three times into the air.

And then there was nothing. No crying, no singing, no talking. No footsteps of approaching creatures. They were alone. She wanted her father. She cried until she was sick again and until her father collapsed around her and held her in his arm. 

She didn’t remember anything else (although she would later admit that was a choice) until she found herself able to breathe again, sitting in the warm bath water as her mother combed her hair.

“Hush, now. I’m here. Just breathe, Jemma. You did everything you could, Jemma. There was nothing more—”

“I couldn’t save her.”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

Jemma sobbed as her mother helped her stand and wrapped her in a thick towel before helping her into her nightgown and into bed. 

“Fitz?” She sat up suddenly, nearly knocking her mother away. She hadn’t seen Fitz since before...she didn’t remember seeing him when they came back.

“He’s fine, Jemma. He’s home, Mike saw him home. Go to sleep, Jemma. It won’t hurt as much in the morning.”

But Jemma did not sleep. She lay there, shaking, until her eyes fell shut and her mother kissed her head and left.

She has been so close. Hope had been there, right in front of her, as she held the antiserum in her hand. She could have saved, if only Ward had given her one more minute. A second. He had been searching for so long, working with Mr. Mackenzie. Poor, poor Mr. Mackenzie. Did he know how close Jemma had gotten to saving Hope? Did he know that there had been a part of his daughter who wanted him back? Would he return to America in mourning? Would he seek vengeance on the Devil himself?

Jemma let out a quiet sob into the darkness. There would be others. There would always be others. How can you kill the Devil when he is old as time itself? He can’t be stopped—he’s there in every breath of life until he cuts them short, taking the innocent from the safety of childhood and throwing them into the truest Hell, the darkness. How many children would suffer hers and Daisy’s fate? How many more would suffer that of Ace and, now, Hope?

In that moment, she resolved there would be no more. Hope, robbed of her own namesake, would be the last. Jemma would not let another child be consumed by darkness. She would watch no more children die. 

Without another thought, she got out of bed and tip-toed into the hall, down the stairs, past the hushed voices of her parents and Mike. She grabbed her coat and opened the door. She ran. As soon as she started, she vaguely regretted not bothering with shoes or stockings, but did not bother to turn around. When she finally reached the lab, she was relieved to find it open and immediately started looking around. Fitz had begun setting up and she had made some adjustments when she had spent the night, but just as she had failed to return to Cambridge after Christmas, she had also failed to come back to her lab, having spent her little time in London with her parents. 

But she was there now and that’s what mattered. She had the antiserum, she knew that, but a syringe was a terrible delivery device. She should have realized that earlier. She needed something quicker, something she could use from a distance. She could do this. She could make it work. She could…

“Jemma?”

“I need a delivery system, Fitz. Can you help me?”

“Jemma, what are you doing here?”

“Fitz, please, I need a hand.” She shrugged off her coat and began bustling around, ignoring Fitz’s please and only stopping when he grabbed her wrist. 

“Jemma!”

She stared at him, freezing momentarily before covering her face with her free hand.

“I have to fix it,” she whispered.

He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. “You did what you could. We were too late, Jemma, but you were able to bring her back to Mack. You gave him closure.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Jemma buried her face in his neck and began to cry. She clutched his nightshirt as he rubbed circles into her back to muttered words she couldn’t make out into her hair. It didn’t matter what he was saying. Not really. He was there and that was enough.

“I just want to help our friends,” she said, her tears stopping at last. “Help everyone.”

“You are.”

“I wanted to become a scientist so I could change the world, find beautiful things. And I’ve been followed by this...this Devil my whole life.”

Fitz let out a soft chuckle into her hair. “What’s the Devil? Without the body of a person—a good, true, living person—he’s nothing.”

“I love you!” she blurted out, the tears beginning to fall again. “I love you so much, Fitz. I want to be with you always, I want to be your wife. I never want to see you hurt. I never want to hurt you.”

“I know,” he said, and held her until Coulson and Mike arrived in the coach and, with a soft kiss, he told Jemma goodnight and swore to see her in the morning and love her always.

As Jemma leaned against Mike’s shoulder on the ride home, she had the vague thought of wondering when Ward had ever heard her referred to as “Simmons,” but, when she awoke the next morning curled up in her bed with Daisy beside her, she did not even remember the thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	7. Part VI

The morning of Hope Mackenzie’s burial was sunny, unseasonably warm, and, for the beauty of the day and child’s youth, the day was so very wrong. When her father was asked why he buried her London rather than taking her home to Chicago, he only said “I don’t want her to wander any more.” Jemma had always been taught that a funeral should be a celebration of a life well lived, but that did not seem to apply to their current situation. 

The gathering was small—aside from those who had voyaged into London’s own Hell to find her attended. Them and the constable, who bid Mack his sincerest condolences, and whispered something into Coulson’s ear as he left as abruptly and unannounced as he came. 

“What did he say?” May asked her husband, not for the first time, as the solemn group walked through the cemetery. 

Coulson leaned close to her and said so softly that Jemma was sure she was not meant to hear it, “John Garrett killed his wife last night. And himself.”

“My god!” She clutched his arm. “Phil—why on Earth did he come for you?”

“I don’t know,” her father said, his face pale and tired. “They’ve been...unwelcomed in society since Daisy’s incident. Perhaps Constable Wilson thought we’d want to know.”

“Or that you killed them.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Melinda. Jemma is eavesdropping and you’ll frighten her.”

Jemma sighed. “I wasn’t eavesdropping, just in earshot. You should talk more quietly. Have you spoken with Mr. Garrett recently?”

Her father shook his head. “Mrs. Garrett sent a letter inquiring after Daisy, but that was all.” He smiled sadly at her. “Go find your Mr. Fitz, darling. Let Mama and I worry about this one.”

Jemma nodded and turned to find Fitz standing directly behind her. He held out his arms and she fell into them, shaking her head. 

“This isn’t over, Fitz.”

He kissed the top of her head. “What’s happened?”

“John Garrett killed himself and his wife last night.”

“What!”

“That’s what the constable came to tell Papa. It’s not just a scandal, Fitz. They’ve been pariahs since the party and I can’t help but worry—“

“—if there was something more sinister at play.”

“Yes!” Jemma shook her head. “Would you listen to us? As though there is something more sinister than a murder suicide.”

“We should tell Trip,” Fitz said. “He knew him best.”

Hand in hand, they walked over to where Trip stood with Daisy, not far from where Mack stood leaning on Elena’s shoulder as Mr. Ward spoke to him in an undertone. When Fitz and Jemma had finished relaying their information to Trip and Daisy, Trip removed his hat and shook his head. 

“That is not the John Garrett I know. He was a good man.”

“This is my fault,” Daisy whispered, tears welling in her eyes. 

Jemma immediately reached out to her in shock. “Don’t say that!”

But Daisy flinched away from her touch. “Don’t…don’t ask me how, Jemma. I don’t know. I don’t...I just—-I know it! I know it, Jemma, I know it. This is all my fault.”

Jemma wrapped her sister in her arms before she could resist and shook her head at her mother as she hurried toward them. Understanding her meaning, May slowed and, turning away from her daughters, said, “Come, let’s go home.”

And so the solemn group left the cemetery. Coulson and Mack led the way, with May, Elena, Mike, and Ward behind them, and the four children in back. Jemma walked with her arms around her sister, only half listening as Trip told Fitz about his experience with Mr. Garrett and his brief introduction to Ward in America.

“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked her softly. “Apart from the obvious.”

“Have I failed you, Daisy?”

Daisy pulled away sharply and stared at Jemma. “Don’t talk nonsense!”

“I’m serious, Daisy. I’ve failed to protect you. The Devil is still out there.”

“I fear closer than that.”

Jemma blinked at her. “What on Earth do you mean?”

“I can feel it, Jemma. You can, too, you know you can. The snake beneath your skin, beside your spine, encircling your neck. I can feel it within me always, but this—he’s around my heart, Jemma. He’s strangling my soul.”

Jemma blinked the tears out of her eyes. 

Of course she felt it. A hundred thousand spiders moving through her veins, and she could swear at night they clambered out of her mouth, her nose, her ears, and blasted through from her internal Hell into the one she lived in, returning in the day to haunt her even then. She grabbed her sister’s arm. 

“I will make it go away, Daisy. I will stop him.”

“I love you for trying.” She kissed Jemma’s cheek. “I’m going to distract Mr. Triplett, and learn to flirt while I’m still young and unpossessed. It might be so nice to be as loved as you are by Fitz.”

With a smile that could fool anyone but Jemma, she pulled away and darted over to take Trip’s arm. Nodding his head, Fitz sped up and offered Jemma his arm. 

“When this is over,” he said, “I’m taking you to the countryside. We’re going to have an obnoxiously small cottage on an obnoxiously large estate and a dog and we will never be unhappy or scared again.”

“And we’ll be married?”

“As publicly or privately as you want. All of society could attend or we could elope. I don’t care. I just want you.”

“And a dog.”

“And a dog.”

“I’ve always wanted a little cottage in Perthshire. I don’t know why, but can’t you just see us there?”

Fitz chuckled. “That’s in Scotland.”

“I know where it is.” She was about to ask if it was just them and a dog Fitz envisioned, when a terrible shout broke through the air.

“Daisy!”

Jemma spun around in just enough time to see her sister sprint down an alleyway, followed closely by Trip. She shrieked. 

“ _ Daisy _ !”

Before she could start running, she was shoved aside as Ward, who had been talking with them, took off after them, calling for her to stop. And as he yelled “Miss Coulson,” into the sunlight, Jemma knew something was so very wrong. 

Dropping Fitz’s arm, she ran off. But the alley was empty. 

“Daisy! DAISY!”

Someone grabbed her arm. 

“Go back to Mr. Mackenzie,” Mike told her as her parents looked frantically around the dim and empty alley. 

“Daisy!”

“Jemma, GO! Go back into the sunlight and stay there! Now, child!”

She clutched his arm, prepared to beg, when a series of shots rang out. Nearby, Daisy began to scream. 

Mike began running toward the sound, his hand tight around her wrist. When they rounded the next corner, Jemma was certain she was going to be sick.

Daisy was sitting on the cobblestone, her back to the wall and her legs outstretched. Trip had his back against Daisy's stomach and his legs tangled between hers, as though he had fallen mid turn. He clutched at Daisy, his body spasming as he tried desperately to say something. Blood streamed down his front and Jemma could see it all—the hurried conversation, the realization that they were not alone, Trip turning quickly enough to save Daisy, but too slowly to save himself.

Jemma lunged forward, sobbing, but was stopped by Mike’s large arms around her waist as he spun her away. 

“Dear god!” 

Mack skidded to a halt and looked at the horror before him. Without saying anything, Mike pressed Jemma into his hands. Mack held her close, reaching out at one point with a “Fitz, no!” As Jemma sensed more than saw her mother run past her, the cacophony of terror became too much and Jemma felt her body give out against him. 

Nothing else seemed to make much sense. The police came and took a scarcely breathing Trip away. The women were shepherded into a carriage. At some point, Jemma made eye contact with Fitz and the world passed unspoken between them. She watched as her father put a protective arm around him and led him to follow the constable out of her sight. Blinking back tears, she glanced around the carriage. Daisy was sobbing on their mother’s shoulder across from her and Elena sat beside her, her face drained of all color, shaking. 

“The police must know they can’t do anything,” she whispered to Jemma. 

Jemma stared at her. “They have to do something! He was s-shot in broad daylight!”

“You’re telling me that you believe that Daisy randomly ran away, with no deeper or more sinister forces at play, and a random passerby decided to shoot Trip and just—what? Leave a society girl with a handsome ransom just sitting there, physically unharmed?”

Jemma shook her head. “He must have heard Mr. Ward approaching. He lured Daisy away, stopped Trip when he followed, and would have continued had he not heard Mr. Ward.”

“I don’t know, Jemma. It looked like she was running away from something, not to it. Besides, Ward never made it there.”

“What?”

“He must have taken a wrong turn. You and Mike were the only ones there when the rest of us arrived. Mr. Ward showed up some time later.”

“But—”

“That is enough.”

Both Elena and Jemma turned to look at May, who was glaring at them over Daisy’s head. 

“There is no use of this now. Not until the men return from the police. Speculation will only lead to fear.”

“But you have an opinion, don’t you, Mama? You always do.”

May sighed and ran her fingers through Daisy’s hair. “Miss Rodriguez is right,” she said. “There is no coincidence when your enemy is the Devil.”

Jemma squeezes her eyes shut. “This is my fault, Mama. Fitz, Trip, they were only here because of me.”

“You cannot control the affections and actions of others. That’s true of you both. You’ll keep blaming yourself, so I won’t tell you not to. I don’t, nor I’m sure would Mr. Triplett, but I know too well how little it helps to be told something is not your fault when you already believe it is. But your father and I have dedicated everything to defeating this demon. I will avenge everything it has robbed of you.”

“Do you promise?” Jemma asked knowingly. 

“I promise I will try.”

Elena leaned forward and placed a hand on May’s knee. “You have already done so much, Mrs. May. Your selflessness is too much.”

May gave a tight-lipped smile before kissing Daisy’s head and reaching out for Jemma’s hand. “You’re quite mistaken. My actions are rather selfish. I am dependent upon my girls.”

It wasn’t until much later, when a growing darkness hunted the streets and the four women had gathered in the sitting room (Jemma and Daisy, rather like children, had been sent upstairs to change and returned in their dressing gowns, hair in loose braids down their backs), that Coulson and Mike arrived home with Fitz and Mack, who immediately took Elena in his arms. 

“He’s still...he’s still alive,” Coulson said, his voice thick. “Ward...Ward insisted on staying with him. Hopefully he is conscious soon.”

“Thank god,” May whispered as Daisy slumped against her in relief.

Fitz walked toward the couch and paused awkwardly in front of Jemma, contemplating what was appropriate in front of so many others. She made the decision for him. With a small cry of his name, she jumped off the couch and flung her arms around his neck, peppering his face in tender kisses. Then, collapsing against him, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

At the same time, he whispered, “I love you.”

“Melinda, Miss Rodriguez,” Coulson said, squeezing his wife’s hand, “We must talk in private. Children, go to the kitchen and find what you can. Then bed.”

“But, Papa,” Daisy began, her voice hoarse. 

“Now,” Coulson snapped. “The three of you. We’ll speak in the morning.”

“Three?”

“I will not risk my daughter wandering off tonight. I don’t care to know the specifics, but Fitz will stay here tonight. Salacious gossip is the least of our concerns. Food, then bed. Now!”

Jemma wasn’t sure which was more startling: her father’s stern tone or his adamance that Fitz stayed the night. Rather than question it, she kissed her father, mother, and Mike, and bidding Mack and Elena goodnight and further condolences, led Fitz into the kitchen. Daisy followed. 

“I thought he was dead.”

Jemma let go of Fitz’s hand and grabbed Daisy’s. “Do you remember anything?”

Daisy began to sob and fell against Jemma.

“Daisy, anything can help.”

“He was saying something, asking me a question.”

“A question?”

“It sounded like ‘what.’ I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Daisy shook her head against Jemma, shaking both of their bodies. So Jemma did not press. Another night, perhaps, she would ask again. She would hear who or what her sister saw. Not tonight.

Jema wrapped her arms around her sister. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Daisy. I’m so, so sorry.” She pressed a hand to Daisy’s face and rubbed her thumb along her cheeks. “You’ll be safe one day. You won’t need to be scared anymore. You won’t feel like you have to feel guilty. I promise.”

She buried her face in her sister’s hair and they stood there, both trembling, until Fitz forced a piece of toast into their hands. And though she desperately coaxed Daisy into eating hers, Jemma ignored Fitz’s own attempts to make her eat her own. 

Eventually, they were upstairs, though Jemma could not remember who suggested they finally go up or the actual process of moving. Her state must have been visible, because when she finally was aware of not being in the kitchen, she was in her own room, sitting on the foot of her bed, with Fitz gently pulling the pins from her hair.

“She’s wrong,” she told him.

“Daisy?”

“It’s not her fault.”

“I know.”

“It’s mine.”

“Jemma!” Fitz jumped from behind her and knelt down on the floor before her, grabbing both her hands and pressing them to his lips. “It’s not your fault. You know it’s not your fault.”

“It is, though! It is! This thing has followed me always and it won’t stop! Don’t you see? Mother, Ace, me, Daisy, Hope, Trip—it’s me, Fitz! I’m the common denominator. Me! I’m cursed, Fitz.”

She pitched forward, all of her soul breaking as she sobbed. Fitz wrapped his arms around her and pulled her off the bed until she was sitting in his lap on the floor. 

“We will defeat this,” he said. “And I will prove to you how very far from cursed you are—I will! You’ve suffered unspeakable misfortune, Jemma, but that is not on you!”

“I may as well have pulled the trigger myself!”

“Hey!” Fitz reached up and cupped her face in his hands. “That is my future wife you are talking about! And she’s perfect and wonderful and kind and will overcome any evil that befalls her.”

“What if he doesn’t wake up?” Jemma managed to ask, but then she was crying too hard to continue, bringing her hands to lie on top of where his own rested on her cheeks. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to stop, but even her own mind could not stop her. It didn’t matter what Fitz said. Trip was there for her. He came to London for her. He knew Daisy because of her. If she had never gone to Cambridge, never left home, never been born, Trip would be safe. As the thought passed through her mind, she felt her very essence escape her. At that moment she was not Jemma Coulson, not even the fake Jemma Simmons. She was nobody and nothing; a mere shell of a human. No wonder the Devil was so set upon her—how easy must her mindless body be to possess. Her tears ceased because nobody could feel nothing. 

“I don’t know what I am,” she said.

“An angel among women.”

She could not tell him how deeply she had fallen. Instead, she said, “I need to feel something.”

He told her, “You feel too much.”

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his and felt the warmth of them until he pulled away.

“You need to sleep.”

“Please!”

Fitz wrapped her arms around her. “I won’t go anywhere. I’m staying with you and I’ll be here when you wake. And, come morning, I’ll make you feel whatever you want.”

“Tomorrow will be too late.”

“There’s no too late anymore, Jemma,” Fitz said. She could hear the love drenching his words, but it was too far away. It wasn’t hers to feel. “I’m never leaving you, Jemma Simmons. Never. We always have tomorrow.”

She froze, nearly forgetting to breath. Fitz seemed to take this as another display of grief and, slowly, took off her dress and underthings and slipped her nightgown over her head. She let him lay her down in bed and curl up next to her. She let him fall into his own troubled sleep, his breath growing slow and deep beside her. But her memories of the sewer flooded into her mind. 

Her name was Jemma Coulson and the world knew her as such. Only Fitz and Trip had known her at school and had known the name she registered with. But she could hear his voice, clean and clear and pleading, “Miss Simmons!” She thought of Trip and knew, she knew that he was not asking a question.

It couldn’t be, but it made perfect sense. How could she have been foolish? He was always there, quiet and unseen among them, and gone before anyone knew where to go. A prayer from an old governess crossed her mind and Jemma prayed, harder than she had ever prayed before, that when she woke, her soul would be her own. She could not watch anyone else suffer. All she hoped was that she would still be herself when she was taken by the Devil. Let the world know that Jemma Coulson fought the Beast so no one else would have to. 

She sat straight up in bed, her final hypothesis screaming in her head:

Tonight was the night when Jemma Coulson would die.

Without waking Fitz, she untangled herself from his arms and quietly dressed. If she were to die on the streets tonight, she would at least save her parents the shame of having her found in only a nightgown. The Devil would not take her pride. The house was silent as she went down the stairs—she had been upstairs longer than she realized and everyone had gone to sleep. Opening the door as quietly as she could, she walked, head high, into the black Hell of night. She didn’t even shut the front door behind her.

In her mind, she chose to remain in bed with Fitz, so she thanked her feet for moving blindly through the snow. She didn’t know where she was going, but she didn’t care. If the Devil wanted her, she would be there. She wound her way through the streets until she was overcome by the simultaneous terror and relief of seeing him standing there on the steps of the Natural History Museum. 

“You took your time,” he said. 

“You’ve picked a fitting location.” She stared behind him at the museum. “How many of the horrors of the natural world are your doing?”

“How many are mankind’s?”

“And how many of those men only acted with your voice in their ear?”

He smiled. It had once been an almost comforting sight. He had had a kind smile with warmth and an unearned familiarity. But now she found herself half-frozen in terror. She wished he would stop. 

“Dear Jemma,” he said. “Dear, poor, sweet, stubborn Jemma. Jemma who will save the world. Don’t you know, dear Jemma, how long it’s been since I’ve truly stretched my strength. See, a little brat came squalling into the world some years ago, as infants tend to do. But this one was different. You took your mother’s place in the world and were always so sure of your own place, your own standing—I marked you, Jemma Coulson, from the second you were brought into this pitiful world.

“Do you know the stories of the Devil, Miss Coulson? Do you know them all? Most know the biblical myths, the stories of Lilith banished from Earth to spend eternity in Hell, but what of the rest? People talk about messiahs, Christ or whoever else they are. Some myths hold that every generation holds a person with the potential to be that savior. But there’s always a reverse, Jemma, don’t you see? There’s always a reverse! Every generation might possess a person with a potential to save humanity, but so too is there potential for a destroyer. The king and queen of Hell. I thought of Daisy, you know. Destroyer of the world. But, no. I had already chosen my queen,  _ my _ savior. The little girl with the impossible mind. What better person to join me than the one with the only mind capable of destroying me?”

Jemma shook her head, tears dripping down her cheeks. She had to be dreaming. She had to be in the depths of a Hellish nightmare. But no matter how hard she shook her head, no matter how hard she willed herself to wake, she was still out in the snow, helpless before the Devil. “Why don’t I just destroy you then? I have the choice, don’t I?”

“Nothing you have done has worked so far, has it? And however close you are, you will stop trying. Now.”

“Give me a reason not to destroy you! I need only days and I will banish you from this world and every other!”

He laughed, high and cool, and said, “You won’t. You won’t ever try. Until now, for your whole lifetime, every soul I’ve touched has been a means to an end. The creation of demons. My children— _ our _ children. I cannot take someone in full without their consent—”

“You will not have it!”

“SILENCE, WOMAN, AND HEED MY WORDS.”

The street shook with his voice and Jemma feared the world was collapsing around her. She was sobbing now, openly and unashamed. She did not want to die.

“Stop your tears or feel my rage, child. You could run and you could destroy me yet. I could chase your consent to the ends of the Earth. But you will not force my hand and you know why.”

“I don’t! I don’t, I swear I don’t!”

“Ace Peterson need not have suffered so long. I could have taken Hope MacKenzie in her sleep. But little Daisy May? She took me exactly where I needed to be. I left you once because you were incomplete. I left your sister because I knew— _ I knew! _ —I could just wait. You would come to me. But I can go back, Jemma. I can always go back.”

“DON’T YOU TOUCH MY SISTER!”

“Then be mine. Take your place as the Queen of Hell and I will never touch Daisy again.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because we’re the same.”

Jemma felt like she was going to be sick. He was lying, she knew he was lying. They were nothing the same. But at the same time, she knew: if she went with him, Daisy would be safe. But in the end, what choice did she have?

The snow and cold was not bothering her anymore. 

“What do I have to do?”

“Be mine.”

“And what will happen to me?”

“You’ll never feel pain again.”

“Will I feel at all?”

“In your own way.”

“And my family?”

“I won’t hurt them—“

“No, will they—“

“They’ll wonder, I’m sure, but we both know they’ll know what happened to sweet, unconventional Jemma Simmons, the girl who never quite existed in the first place.” When Jemma didn’t respond, he added, “I will never think of Daisy again.”

* * *

Fitz was dimly aware of Jemma leaving his arms and thought that she was going to relieve herself. And then he heard the door open. 

Quietly, he got out of bed and found himself drawn to the window. The gate was open and a figure he knew was Jemma was walking away. He watched, dumbstruck, and then ran. Should he have woken her parents? Of course! But nothing mattered at that moment other than figuring out what was wrong. 

He pulled his suspenders back up as he ran through the open front door. He tried to follow her footprints in the snow, but the fall was too steady and the wind too strong. He lost them shortly.

_ “SILENCE, WOMAN, AND HEED MY WORDS.” _

The voice rang like an explosion through the streets and Fitz froze in his tracks.

“Jemma?”

He was answered by nothing but the wind.

“Jemma! Jemma!”

He spun around in the darkness and wanted to scream. He could not say where the voice came from, he could not say whose it was, but he knew that if he found it, he would find Jemma. Again, he screamed at her name. And then, from somewhere not too far behind him, he heard her voice loud and clear:

_ “DON’T YOU TOUCH MY SISTER!” _

“JEMMA!”

He took off, panting her name against the wind. He ran and ran and ran until he saw her.

He stood across the street from the Natural History Museum and watched as Jemma stood on the step, locked in a man’s embrace. He could do nothing but stare in shock, in pain, in confusion, as the man broke the kiss and stared at him, his pale face glowing against his dark hair. With a familiar smile at Fitz, he turned and walked into the night. Jemma stood there, unmoving, on the steps. Even as he whimpered her name, she stood there in the cold, her back to him. When he was sure the man was completely gone, he moved from the darkness of the shadows and crossed the street to where she stood, dressed but barefoot in the snow.

“Jemma?” 

He climbed the steps and grabbed her elbow. She swallowed audibly but did not turn to face him. 

“Jemma?”

“I wish you had stayed in bed.” Her voice was cool and soft and utterly uncaring.

“Jemma, you’re not well. You need to come home. I know it was a misunderstanding.”

“No.”

“What?”

Her shoulders caved as she began to sob and Fitz knew he was powerless to comfort her.

“Who was that, Jemma?” he asked her softly. “I can help you.”

She only sobbed harder. “Hurting you will be the worst sin of my life.”

“Jemma, you’re scaring me. Who was that? I-I know—I  _ know _ it wasn’t Grant Ward, Jemma,” he said, hoping at least to convince himself. “I know it wasn’t.”

“You’ll just be cross and you’ll say it’s impossible, but I would put your happiness over my life.”

“But I have no happiness without you.”

Jemma continued to cry. “I would give my life for your happiness,” she repeated. “But I will put Daisy’s life ahead of your happiness. Every time. You mustn't resent her Fitz.”

Fitz’s heart was pounding deafeningly in his chest and he realized that, until this moment, he had never known true fear. Everything before that very second seemed meaningless to him. “Jemma, who was that? Tell me now. Who. Was. That?”

She stopped crying as suddenly as she had started and laughed as she turned around and stared at him with eyes of only blackness. She reached out suddenly and grabbed his neck, lifting him off the ground. As though he were nothing, she tossed him down the steps where he landed, bruised and bloody, on the snow-covered cobblestone below. As night clouded his vision, he heard her voice, so far away.

“He was everything, Fitz,” it said. “Everything you will never be.”


	8. Part VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New horrors abound as Fitz and the Coulson family find themselves in a race against time

Coulson was no stranger to fear. As a young man, he had assumed he would never face a fear so terrible as the war. But as the years passed, he had learned that seeing his own hand in the mud beside him was nothing compared to what he would one day experience. Yet exposure to horror after horror could not limit the impact fear had upon him.

That night, he woke with a start, still dressed in an empty bed, and knew he would not fall back asleep until he saw his wife and daughters. He went to Daisy first and found her curled up in her own bed, sleeping in her mother’s arms. Breathing a sigh of relief, Coulson kissed each of their heads, May stirring slightly as she did so, and walked back into the hall. As he turned the corner, he paused for a moment, confused as to why Jemma’s door would be wide open, and broke into a run.

The room was empty. Even knowing it was futile, he roared her name into the silent house before racing back towards Daisy’s room. May was already opening the door as he arrived and he skidded to a halt before her. Over her shoulder, he could see Daisy sitting in bed, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Phil?”

He hated the sound of fear in his wife's voice.

“Stay with Daisy!” He squeezed her hand, hoping to reassure at least one of them. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

He was fumbling with his shoes when Mike appeared next to him.

“She’s gone?”

When Coulson nodded, Mike shook his head furiously and said, “This must end now.” And without another word, they went out into the night.

It did not take them long to find Fitz. They found him stumbling out of an alleyway with one hand pressed against his bleeding brow. When Coulson called out his name, he sunk to his knees, shaking in the snow.

“What happened, Fitz?”

“Where’s Jemma?”

Fitz let out a wail so desperate, so deep, and so hopeless, it was the type of cry that could will time to stop and left no question to the meaning behind it. Coulson’s knees gave out from under him. Mike grabbed him, wrapping his arms around Coulson’s chest and trying to still him. For the first time in nearly thirty years, both men wished they were back at Fort Wagner. The blood and splintered bones and burning flesh were nothing compared to this pain, this fear. With a horrible shout, Coulson wrenched himself from Mike’s arms and reached for Fitz’s collar.

“Where is my daughter?” he demanded. “Where’s my Jemma?”

Mike grabbed Coulson’s wrist with a soft, “Phil!” Pulling up first Coulson and then Fitz, he said to the latter, “Fitz, who did this to you?” He pulled Fitz’s hand away from his face, examining in the gash on the boy’s forehead. “Tell us what happened, Fitz.”

“I tried to go after her,” Fitz whispered, pressing the back of his hand into his mouth, his whole body shaking.

“Fitz, who did this? Did they take Jemma?”

When Fitz looked up, Coulson knew his daughter was gone.

Somehow, the three men got home. They could hear Daisy’s wails as soon as they opened the door. Coulson ran to the sitting room, ready to take her in his arm, but as he reached out, Daisy recoiled.

“It’s my fault!” she shrieked. “I made her so stupid.” When Fitz entered the room, she lunged at him, only to be caught at the waist by her father. 

“You let her go!” she continued. “You let her go!”

Fitz brought his hand up to cover his face as he sunk down against the doorpost behind him.

“Daisy!” Coulson held his daughter close and tight until, finally, she ceased to struggle against him and leaned limply into his chest. He sat her back down on the sofa and May immediately wrapped her arms around her.

“Daisy says Jemma…” May trailed off, unable to say what Daisy had told her. “Phil, tell me it isn’t true. Tell me she is wrong.”

Coulson let out a shaky breath and walked over to Fitz, kneeling down beside him and squeezing his shoulder.

“Step by step, Fitz,” he said. “Let’s start with who hurt you?”

“They might have her,” Mike added. “We can still get her back.”

Fitz dropped his hand and looked first at Coulson and then, slowly, to Mike. 

“No.” His voice was raw, but firm. “There’s no...she’s not…” Struggling to breathe, he turned back to Coulson. “It was Jemma.”

“What? Why did Jemma do?”

“It was her. She...she left.”

On the sofa, Daisy let out a sob that May quickly buried in her own shoulder. “What do you mean? Where’s my daughter?”

Fitz shut his eyes but, even so, the tears leaked through. “It was Ward,” he managed to breath out. “It was Ward and she went to him.”

“For  _ me! _ ” Daisy’s voice pulsed through Fitz’s broken skin, scratching him down to the bone. “I know it. I can...I can feel it, Mama. It’s gone, it’s gone, she’s gone. He’s gone. I—Mama, I can’t, I can’t.” She broke off, scarcely breathing, and looked at Fitz. “I thought he was asking me a question. I thought he was saying ‘what.’”

Next to Fitz, Mike took in a sharp breath and immediately turned to walk out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Coulson called after him. 

“Who stayed with Trip at the hospital?” When the room fell silent in response, Mike continued, “I’m checking on the boy and then going to Mack. Keep the children safe until I am back.”

After he left, Coulson turned back to Fitz. “What did you mean by ‘she left?’”

“By the time I got there,” Fitz said slowly, “she wasn’t fighting anymore. It wasn’t like Daisy. She wasn’t fighting, she wasn’t in pain. She was just sad. Resigned.” He looked at Daisy, tears running down both of their faces. “She told me not to resent you. That your life has to come first. How could I ask her to not save you?”

Daisy stood, her whole body trembling as her arms hung lifelessly at her sides. “Fitz, please,” she said as she walked towards him. In her nightgown, she looked as ethereal as the creatures they had been hunting and Fitz willed himself to not be afraid as Daisy spoke again. “Please don’t make me live with that.”

“She loves you,” he whispered, hesitantly accepting the hand she held out to him and allowing her to help him to stand. “Even now, Daisy, she loves you.”

“You have to save her.” Embracing Fitz, Daisy breathed into his ear. “If she loves me—if  _ you _ love me, you have to save her.”

Within an hour, Mike had returned with Mack and Elena, informing everyone that Trip was safe, though still unconscious, in the hospital. Ward, he had been informed, had left hours before. Quickly, the adults made their way into the library, leaving Fitz and Daisy alone in the sitting room. They sat together side by side on the sofa, Fitz leaning forwards into his hands, his elbows upon his knees, and Daisy with her own knees pulled up tight against her chest.

“How much do you love my sister?” she asked at last, the question sharp against the silence.

“Infinitely,” he said without hesitation. “It’s not quantifiable. It’s not even static.” He sat up and turned towards her, desperation etched into his face as he willed her to understand. “Every day I love her exponentially more—infinitely more—than I did the day before.”

For a long time, Daisy did not respond. When she finally did, she spoke so quietly that Fitz had to lean in to hear her.

“You have to stop her.”

“What?”

When Daisy spoke again, he could barely hear her. This time, however, it was not due to Daisy’s own soft spokenness, but rather due to the thunderous beating of his own heart.

“You have to love her so much that you would rather see her die herself than live as someone— _ something _ else.”

Fitz jumped up with such ferocity that Daisy recoiled, watching him in fear as he pulled out his own hair, his madness and despair radiating throughout the room.

“How can you ask that of me?” he spat as he turned towards her. “How could I...How? I couldn’t live—”

“Can you live now? I can’t Fitz, I can’t!”

Before Fitz could respond, Coulson burst back into the room.

“Can you find her?” he demanded of his younger daughter. “The way you found Hope, can you find Jemma?

Daisy shook her head, staring up at her father with red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t know, Papa. I...I don’t know how I knew then. I wouldn’t know how to try.”

“I don’t care,” Coulson said. “Try. Get dressed and try and stay with Mama and Uncle Mike until I come back for you. Fitz.”

He grabbed Fitz’s arm and half-dragged him out into the snow and guided him into the waiting coach. 

“Tell me about the medicine,” Coulson demanded as soon as they began to move. “Jemma’s antiserum.”

Fitz shook his head. “It doesn’t work. She was trying to find a way to kill anything foreign within the body, but it doesn’t work. The possession was too complete.”

“We must try.”

“It will kill her!”

Coulson slammed his fist hard into the coach’s door before bringing his hand up to cover his face. He said nothing more until the coach came to a stop in front of the lab.

“Sir?” Fitz asked as they stepped inside.

“She must have notes. I know my daughter, Fitz. There must be something.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There has to be something in here.”

“There’s nothing.”

“I DON’T CARE! She is my daughter, Fitz.  _ She is my daughter! _ ” Coulson glanced around the room, breathing heavily.

Fitz did not know what to say or do, a rarity in his life. He watched as Coulson’s life unravelled around him, but could do nothing, as his own life was imploding as well.

“I would do anything for her,” he said, his voice breaking. “I would die for her. I would leave her forever if I knew it would keep her safe. But I cannot kill her, not even to save her. You cannot ask me to do that.”

“And that’s what it would do, her antiserum? It would kill her?”

Fitz nodded. “Every day we were gone, she tried to fix it. We used samples of Daisy’s blood. Every single day. But nothing worked.”

Coulson ran his hand through his hair. “Would it kill Ward?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not a good enough answer.”

Fitz looked at him helplessly. “It could. It could not. If it didn’t, you would certainly be too dead to know. Honestly, even if it did work, he’d probably still kill you before it was administered. Before it took effect.” Fitz sighed and went to go sit on one of the rickety chairs by the desk. “She may be so far gone that killing him may not save her. But…” He trailed off, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“But what?”

“I have to try it, don’t I? Even if it kills me. At worst, I die believing I’m avenging her. At best, I die saving her.”

Coulson walked over to him and squeezed his arm. “Not you, Fitz. Us.”

Quickly gathering what they needed, the two returned back to the Coulsons’ home, where the rest of the party was waiting just inside the door. Coulson immediately went to Daisy and wrapped his arm tightly around her. 

“I love you always,” he said, kissing her forehead. “No matter what.”

“I know, Papa.” Daisy leaned into his embrace and shut her eyes. She had dressed, but her hair was still in a sleepy mess down her back. There was no possible way for any one to ignore the fact that she was just a child, but they forced themselves to, anyway. 

“I can’t say for sure where Jemma is,” she continued, “but I think we need to go back to St. Bartholomew’s.”

From where he sat at the bottom of the staircase, Mack took a deep breath. 

“I don’t think he’s so foolish as to go somewhere we’ve been. He’ll know we’ll come looking.”

Daisy pulled back from her father and looked at Mack. “He’s always there, somewhere below. And I know he wants us to come. I know it. I’ve spent my whole life with him in my head, I know how he thinks. The best way to hurt us, to hurt Jemma, is to let us find her.”

Coulson sighed and looked from Daisy to May. “Stay here,” he said. “If we’re not back by sunrise—”

“You are not leaving us behind, Phil.” Although May’s voice was quiet, her fierce demand silenced the room. “I love her just as much as you do.”

For a moment, Coulson looked like he was going to fight back. Perhaps it was only so as not to waste any more time, but, even so, he nodded and turned to go back out into the dark.

The group moved quietly, Coulson and Mike in the front with Mack in the rear. They slipped through the empty streets, their ears on alert for the first sign of danger. Fitz walked close behind Coulson, his hand in his pocket as he ran his fingers over the cold metal of his latest invention. The idea had come to him as soon as Coulson and Mike had retrieved Jemma the night Hope died. Ward, the bastard, had shot at Hope before Jemma could get close enough to inject her with the syringe. How foolish Fitz had been to take so long to realize that the device would need to work from a distance for the safety of the user. And so, finally, he had developed a device, a gun of sorts, that first used electrical currents to incapacitate the target before injecting the target with a small dart of the antiserum. He had given Coulson the syringe, just in case, but Fitz was determined: he would find Grant Ward and cause him every pain known to man.

This time, as they descended the stairs into the sewers with only their lanterns for light, they were prepared for the awful stench that met them.

“Which way did she go last time?” Elena asked.

Daisy shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t be the same.”

Mike reached out to her and took her hand. “Don’t leave my side, Daisy. Promise.”

“I promise.”

“I’m going alone.”

Immediately, everyone turned to look at Fitz.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” May told him.

“I’m not. I just know that I have to.” He took a deep breath. “Mr. Coulson has a syringe with an antiserum. I don’t think it works, though. It’ll kill, not cure. Save it for Ward. Make sure the bastard suffers.”

Before anyone could stop him, Fitz turned and walked into one of the tunnels, his head held high. He could hear Daisy scream for him, but he could not look back. He could not falter. He had to do this alone. He knew that just as much as he knew he loved Jemma. His only chance to ever see her again, his only chance to save her, was if he went alone. They were inevitable and he would let nothing, not even his own life, keep him from her. If he could just get to Ward, he would die able to tell himself that he had saved the woman he loved.

Even after several minutes of walking through the dark pathway, nothing came for him. It wasn’t right. Everything was quiet, quieter than death. For the first time that night, Fitz was terrifyingly aware of the fact his only weapon was a single dose of Jemma’s antiserum. He had no gun, no way of defending himself. 

Far ahead of him, Fitz saw the dim glow of firelight and prepared to take his final stance. He pulled the device from his pocket and sped up his pace. As he splashed through the sewage, he knew that he had lost all elements of surprise, but it didn’t matter. The light grew closer and closer and, rounding that final corner, Fitz let out a great bellow as he held the device high. He would not die in fear.

“You found me.”

Fitz froze and every ounce of strength he possessed was drained from his body. It wasn’t Ward waiting for him. 

Jemma stood alone in the dimly lit room, so pale that she seemed to glow in the flames licking the walls. She was in a plain white dress with a high collar, one Fitz was sure she had not been wearing at the museum. As he stepped closer and his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that it was the same white lace dress that every creature they had seen had been wearing. Unable to help himself, he choked out a small sob and looked down at the grown. Bile rose in his throat as he looked at her bare feet, covered in sewage and blue from the cold, but he swallowed it down.

“Jemma.”

She stepped towards him and he couldn’t help it. He lowered the device, both arms hanging limply at his sides. He could not, even for a moment, hold a gun at her. It didn’t matter that it shot antiserum instead of bullets. The effect, he knew, would be the same. 

She stepped again toward him and he held his breath, watching those brown eyes he loved so deeply, until she was flush against him with her head on his shoulder. 

“I always thought dying for the people that I loved would be hard,” she whispered. “I let it take me, Fitz. I picked this. I have to keep you safe. I have to, for Daisy.”

He gasped into her hair, overwhelmed now by both love and fear, and wrapped his arms around her as her knees gave out beneath her. She felt so heavy in his arms and weightless all at the same time.

“Please, Fitz.” She ran her fingers down his right hand until they brushed the gun he was holding. Wrapping his hand in hers, she brought it up between them. “You love me more than this. You love me enough to do this”

He shook his head but he couldn't bring himself to remove the gun from between them or his hands from the trigger. “I can’t…I’m not strong enough to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it.”

She smiled even as a sob tore through her and cupped her hand over his, softly stroking his trigger finger. “Oh, Fitz,” she whispered. “Don’t you see that you already are?”

“You’re still you,” he cried. “I can see you, I can hear still in there.”

“Look at me, Fitz.”

He turned his head slightly. He wanted to look at her forever. But it would kill him to see the terror that was replacing the warmth in her eyes as they clouded right in front of him. He brought his left hand to her cheek.

“Jemma…”

“With a kiss. Please, Fitz.”

She took the hand that wasn’t holding the gun with him and moved it to his hair, looking into his eyes and praying that he would remember how much they loved him and not the Hell within. Their bodies jerked together with the force of fire and, though she knew it was among her last, that gasp felt like her first breath of life. She couldn’t help but smile as she waited for the darkness.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! One mini chapter left. Thank you for sticking with this!


	9. Part VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She falls through the night unable to scream, unable to close her eyes. She falls through the night away from her sister’s shrieks, her father’s shouts, from the warmth of someone’s hand on her back. She can feel the night seeping into her, clawing its way into her eyes, her nose, her unscreaming mouth. It burns her tongue, scratches at her teeth, and she knows it is desperate to pull the scream from her. But it couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I can't believe I'm at the final chapter. Thank you so much to agentcalliope for kicking my butt through this whole process. Love you, lady.
> 
> Also, I've been really bad at responding to comments lately. I will get to it eventually, but please know that I read each and every one (multiple times, if I'm being honest) and have so much love for each one of you who takes the time to interact with this story.

_ She falls through the night unable to scream, unable to close her eyes. She falls through the night away from her sister’s shrieks, her father’s shouts, from the warmth of someone’s hand on her back. She can feel the night seeping into her, clawing its way into her eyes, her nose, her unscreaming mouth. It burns her tongue, scratches at her teeth, and she knows it is desperate to pull the scream from her. But it couldn’t. _

_ Her sense of hearing fails her through the deafening nothing. _

_ Her sense of touch fails her through the suffocating solitude. _

_ Her sense of taste fails her through the lack of iron in the blood filling her mouth. _

_ But she cannot scream because she refuses to believe her sight had failed her. She can not be falling through night because night is never as dark as it wants to be. This is not night. _

_ This is nothing. _

_ She shuts her mouth, her eyes, her mind, and tries to will herself back to life. _

_ When she opens her eyes, she is still. The ground is as hard and cold as she is, and, when she tries to blink away the blood red light, her eyes will not shut and she knows she is dead. A body shifts and lays beside her. There is a frozen, familiar warmth in the eyes she recognizes from girlhood. Warm breath against her face clouds her senses as the body shifts closer and closer against her until iron-coated lips press against hers and, in death, she can neither kiss back nor push away. She can only wait until that soft, terrible, awesome voice shatters the silence and she knows that this is not nothing, but Hell. _

_ “A deal is a deal.” _

_ Every atom in her body splits as she is ripped away. _

_ And yet, he keeps pulling her back. _

_ Somewhere, someone is singing. She can’t hear it, not exactly. But she can feel it pulsing with the blood through her veins. It is like a fire burning her from the inside out. She was to exhale it all, but that would have required her to be able to breathe. _

_ She has taken the sheets off of her bed and strung them between the footboard and the chair at her vanity. Daisy holds a lantern tightly in her hands, shaking her head as she stares at Jemma with wide eyes. _

_ “I’m afraid of the dark,” she whispers. _

_ Jemma reaches out and squeezes Daisy’s knee. “It’s okay, I am too. We’ll be brave together.” _

_ Together, they blow out the light. _

_ They’re lying in the sunroom and Daisy is trying to teach her some bawdy bar song. Jemma doesn’t even want to know how she learned it. The sun is blaring down through the glass ceiling, but Jemma cannot bring herself to close her eyes. _

_ “Jemma?” _

_ “Yeah?” _

_ “I’m really glad you're my sister.” _

_ She smiles and turns her head just enough to face Daisy on the couch opposite her. _

_ “I love you, too.” _

_ She’s fumbling, blindly, for the bedside lamp. _

_ “I want to see you,” she says. “I want to be seen.” _

_ In the soft glow of the lamp, she sees Fitz sitting nervously on his own bed. His union suit is unbuttoned and only one of his arms is still in the sleeve. She tries to stop her hand from shaking as she pushes it off his shoulder, bringing her lips back to his. She can feel his fingers lifting her chemise over her head. She lies back down, staring up at him as his fingers now ghost up her legs and remove her drawers. She is completely bare before him now, but somehow she doesn’t feel sinful or monstrous. If anything, it is the first time in her life when she doesn’t feel consumed by the night. As he lowers himself over her, she realizes that she has never been so full of light. _

_ Even later, when the lamp has been turned back off and he is asleep beside her. Jemma feels consumed by lightness. _

The first thing she noticed about Hell is how warm it was. She couldn’t move her arms, she couldn’t turn away from the warmth of the air blowing into her face. She wanted to keep her eyes closed forever. To see Hell will make it real. But her fear of the unknown outweighed her fear of death and she let her eyes flutter open.

She was lying on her side, wrapped tightly in the thick white blankets of her own bed. Daisy was with her, facing her as she slept with her arms tightly around Jemma.

The sun illuminated the whole room.

Jemma began breathing hard and fast, overwhelmed by her terror. Daisy should not be here, could not be here. She wanted to cry but was too afraid to make a sound. Something grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her up to sitting and she screamed.

Daisy sat straight up, Jemma’s name bursting from her lips. Jemma herself continued to thrash and cry until she heard Fitz’s voice in her ear.

“You’re safe Jemma, you’re safe. You did it, Jemma.”

She stopped screaming, still breathing wildly, as though she would never be able to breathe enough. The door burst open and her parents and Mike came running in.

As soon as she saw her father, Jemma called out for him and it was not until he was holding her that Jemma knew that, this time, she was truly safe.

“I’m so thirsty, Papa.”

Coulson kissed the top of her head and yelled for someone to bring her water. When it came, she drank desperately and looked around. Mike was sitting at the foot squeezing her foot through the blankets. May was sitting next to Daisy, holding the younger girl tight against her as she looked, awestruck, at Jemma. She was crying.

Jemma finished her water and leaned back into Fitz’s arms. She stared at her father. His chin was lined with stubble, his eyes were red, and his cheeks were sunken in.

“You need to eat something, Papa. And to sleep.”

Coulson laughed and reached out to stroke her cheek.

“No, Jemma. I just need to look at you a little bit longer.”

Hot tears began to leak down her face, dripping onto her father’s hand as he smiled at her with unspeakable adoration.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she told him. “I promise.” She leaned deeper into Fitz, letting her eyes fall shut as she let her head rest on his shoulder. She wanted to ask what happened, but didn’t know how. Fortunately, Daisy seemed to be able to read her mind.

“Mama went after Fitz and I was with Uncle Mike,” she began. “And we heard Papa scream so we went looking for him. He found him. Ward. They were fighting and then Papa, he-he injected him with your antiserum and Ward just stood there. There was something in his eyes and I just...I just…”

As she trailed off, Mike leaned forward to squeeze her hand. It was only then that Jemma noticed that the skin on Daisy’s right hand was tightly wrapped in linen and that the bits of finger that poked through were red and shiny and raw.

“Our sweet girl went at him,” Mike said, smiling proudly at Daisy. “I didn’t think I could have been more scared that night, but then our Daisy just took her lantern and forced it against his chest.”

“I needed him to burn,” Daisy said quietly.

Jemma nodded. “Me, too. Is Trip…?”

“He’s awake,” May told her with a watery smile. “Mack and Elena are with him. He’ll be alright.”

Jemma let out a sob of relief. “And...what happened to me?”

It was Fitz, this time, who responded, his words warm and soft against her ear. 

“I made a new delivery mechanism for your antiserum. It released an electric pulse to incapacitate before administering the antiserum.”

Jemma turned her head to face him. He was crying, but, if she had had the strength, she would have kissed every tear away. Instead, she settled for pressing her forehead against his.

“Fitz, you’re brilliant,” she whispered. “How are you real?”

Fitz sniffed and tightened his hold on her. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would work.”

Jemma threaded her fingers through his hair and laughed. “That’s all right. I knew you could do it, Fitz. I know you’re the hero.”

He kisses her slowly. “You’re your own hero, Jemma. You saved yourself.”

* * *

The little girl was afraid of the dark. She would sit awake at night, clutching her blankets to her chest and keeping her eyes wide, ready for anything that moved in the darkness. One night, she woke with a start and stood straight up in her bed, right in the middle. The room was quiet except for the soft sighs of her brother, asleep in his cradle. She wished he could talk, that she could ask him to open his eyes and tell her what was beneath the bed. But he could barely say her name, much less answer a question. The little girl began to cry as the door creaked open.

“What are you doing up, darling?” Her mother entered the room, followed closely by her father. They were both still dressed.

“There’s something in the dark,” the girl whispered.

Her mother sat down on the bed and pulled the girl into her lap.

“I’m here,” she said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “Daddy and I are here now. And we’ll keep the dark safe.”

“Promise?”

The woman looked up at her husband. “Promise,” she said.

But the truth remained that the darkness was filled with horrors beyond their wildest imagination. She knew better than to tell her children that there was nothing to fear in the dark. But she also knew that she had gone to Hell and back to fight what lurked there and that, if it meant keeping her children safe, she would do it a hundred times more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's stuck with the story and with me through my time in this fandom. I don't know when or if I'll be writing for this fandom again, but thank you for making my time in the Fitzsimmons world an unforgettable one <3


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